Imagine you are waiting for a loved one to call from the airport. The phone hasn't rung, their flight is over 12 hours late. You call the airline, all they are saying is that the flight's been cancelled. You're frantic.
You're resigned to waiting. The phone's not ringing. You switch on the television to pass the time.
The lead item on the seven o'clock news is a horrific air crash.
Gina Newport was not even given the courtesy of a phone call to ease her into the shattering confirmation that her husband Mark was one of the victims.
Flight SU 593 from Moscow to Hong Kong was due to arrive at Kai Tak at 6.55 on the morning of April 23, 1994, but had disappeared from radar four hours after takeoff.
Residents of a remote Siberian town were the last people to spot the Aeroflot Airbus A-310, when it took a violent nose-dive into a mountainside. It exploded into a ball of flames on impact.
All 12 crew members and 63 passengers perished. Gina and her family gazed at the television screen as reports came in that the plane had burned for hours before rescue workers made it through metre-high snowdrifts to the wreckage.