Siblings Mourn Buffalo Plane Crash Victim Ellyce Kausner
Student was traveling to Buffalo, N.Y., for a Valentine's date with nephew, 4.
Feb. 13, 2009 — -- Ellyce Kausner, a second-year student at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville, was traveling home to Buffalo, N.Y., to be her 4-year-old nephew's date at a Valentine's Day party at his school today.
"I have a son in kindergarten and they are doing a Valentine's Day lunch and you bring somebody special and Ellie was going with him," Ellyce Kausner's sister Laura Kausner told "Good Morning America's" Chris Cuomo in an exclusive interview today.
Ellyce Kausner never made it to the kindergartner's party. She was one of 50 people killed on Continental Express flight 3407 when it crashed moments before its scheduled landing at 10:25 p.m Thursday.
The plane, traveling from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to Buffalo, N.Y., nose-dived into a home in the small hamlet of Clarence Center and erupted into flames. Investigators don't yet know what caused the crash.
Ellyce Kausner's brother Chris Kausner heard the news about a plane crash on the radio.
"I was driving home from a soccer game and the way I come home, I have to pretty much drive right through that neighborhood and I was listening to the radio and I heard the cutaway to the news that there was a plane down and, honestly, I just, I got a real bad feeling in my gut just hearing that," Chris Kausner told "GMA."
Laura Kausner and her son were waiting at the airport for her sister's plane to arrive.
"Her phone was off and I just, I never would have assumed, I never would have guessed anything close to this, so I assumed that her flight was delayed," Laura Kausner said. "At 11:30, after an hour of not really knowing what was going on, I talked to my brother. He called me at the airport and said there was news that a plane was crashed in Buffalo. At that moment it started to sink in and become a possibility."
Laura and Chris Kausner had to call their parents in Florida to break the terrible news.
Both siblings said the law student was a vibrant, fun woman and a great aunt to her four nieces and nephews.
"We were saying that Ellie had a flare for the dramatic. She was very exciting to be around and if she was going to go out, she would want her picture on national TV," Chris Kausner said.
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