A roller coaster of shock, dread, then resignation

Stewart P. Thomas of Coral Gables fought frustration and fear of the inevitable as he watched Saturday's images of ValuJet Flight 592.

Pictures of the crash site showed scrap metal. No people. No hint that his daughter, Betsy Favero, 44, her husband Franco, 50, or their daughter Laura, 14, could have survived.

"There doesn't seem to be any hope," Thomas said. "The screens on TV have gotten pretty close. I can't see any metal larger than a dishpan. I'm watching it. If you can find any hope, I'd sure like to hear it."

Thomas' daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter had come to Miami from their Atlanta home for a party at Thomas' house. They arrived Thursday afternoon and were ready to leave at noon Saturday.

Thomas drove them to the airport. He got there an hour early.

"They said the flight was leaving on time, so I departed," he said.

"I took a ride with my other daughter to Key Biscayne. On the way, we heard on the radio about the crash. We tried to force ourselves to believe it couldn't be. They said ValuJet, and it was a little too meaningful. ValuJet doesn't have all that many flights.''

He drove home to Coral Gables to watch TV and make difficult phone calls. Thomas, the retired chief of Sears operations in South Florida, spent the next few hours talking to David, his 22-year-old grandson, who had just learned that his parents were on board the crashed plane.

"He's taking it very hard,'' said Thomas, who was a member of the Non-Group, a group of high- profile business and community leaders. ``Talking to him is a real shock. Now I'm thinking, `What's my next step?' We've spent the day as you would imagine: thinking about the future.''

Thomas' misery was coupled with frustration. He sought news and could not get it.

"We've gotten nothing from ValuJet," he said Saturday afternoon.

"We called the number in the telephone book, and we got referred to a Martha Scott in Atlanta. We called the number and all you get is press this button, press that button. I called the number that was flashed on TV and got nothing; they transfer you to Atlanta. The voice that comes on there is like they've never heard of a crash.

"It's just terrible. We just need to know. To be informed, officially.''

Also on the plane: F. Conway Hamilton, 85, and his wife Laurie Hamilton, 78, long-time Coral Gables residents who were flying to Atlanta for the college graduation of their granddaughter Laura C. Sawyer.

It was to be a big family affair. The couple's three daughters were flying from Miami, New Jersey and Houston to meet in Atlanta.

Today they planned to celebrate Mother's Day. Monday, they were going attend Sawyer's graduation from Emory University. A 1992 graduate of Palmetto High, she is student body president at Emory. Her grandparents were very proud.

Conway Hamilton was a retired carpet wholesaler. The couple spent years in Coral Gables, but recently moved to East Ridge Retirement Village in South Dade.

"It's the worst thing in the world you think of and the last thing you expect,'' Sawyer said in a phone interview from Atlanta. "There wasn't much angst today. We knew in our hearts they were gone. Within a half-hour of hearing about the crash, we came to realize they had passed."

Sawyer, 22, says she plans to attend graduation ceremonies. She will be receiving Emory's highest award, given to the student with the best academic and volunteer record.

"I know my grandparents would have wanted it,'' she said. ``They were real excited about coming up. I was their first grandchild to graduate from college.''

Her mother, Laura H. "Lee'' Sawyer, of South Dade, said the family is "at peace'' with their deaths.

"They left happy for a happy trip,'' she said, who flew up a day before her parents. ``I can picture them on the plane holding hands. They were married 56 years. They had a long and good life.''

"I've stopped crying now,'' she added, ``but that doesn't mean I won't be crying again in two minutes.''