Best views, weather, etc. How to test them 👓 SC, Ala. sites look back Betty Ford honored
NEWS
Petersburg

Woman waits for word on missing plane, 5 decades later

Mark Rivera
WTSP-TV, Tampa, Fla.
Retired schoolteacher Jeraldine Rubin of St. Petersburg, Fla., waits for news of a plane that disappeared 57 years ago. Her brother, airman John E. Bryant, was on board.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — As family members of passengers aboard Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 worry and wait for news about the missing aircraft that vanished two weeks ago, Jeraldine Rubin can relate to their anguish.

The retired schoolteacher is still waiting for news of a plane that disappeared more than 50 years ago.

"Hope faded late yesterday for the safety of 67 Americans," the 71-year-old St. Petersburg resident read from a news article. "The plane carried 37 Air Force personnel, including the crew of nine men and one woman."

One of the men on board was her brother, airman John E. Bryant. He'd just turned 19.

In 1957, Bryant's plane disappeared on its way from California to Japan. It's never been found. That's why, when Rubin heard about the Boeing 777 jet that vanished about an hour after it took off March 8 from Kuala Lumpur International Airport with 239 people on board, she says, "All these bells started ringing again. It just took me back."

On Monday, authorities said some 26 countries are now involved in the massive international search-and-rescue mission that has been extended to what officials are calling two "corridors" that the plane may have flown from its last known position. One is an arc north toward central Asia, the other is an arc south toward the southern Indian Ocean and Australia.

Rubin says it's hope that's gotten her through all these years.

"Constantly hope, hope, hope, hope," she said. "That was what really kept everything together. I know it kept everything together for me," she says.

And it's what she says families waiting for word of their loved ones need to keep.

"We should continue to hope and expect things to work out as the Lord intended them to be."

Contributing: The Associated Press

Featured Weekly Ad