Adrian Ma, host and reporter for NPR’s ‘The Indicator from Planet Money,’ tragically lost his girlfriend, Kiah Duggins, who was on American Airlines flight AA5342 that crashed in Washington, D.C. on January 29. The flight collided with a Black Hawk helicopter mid-air over the Potomac River, killing all 67 passengers on board.

Adrian recounts the night he arrived to the airport to pick Kiah up from her arriving flight. He expected a call or text from her but received neither. Instead, he was greeted with emergency vehicles and sirens.

Adrian said that people who were there to pick up family and friends from that flight were taken to a lounge. 

"There's somebody standing there with a passenger manifest, and they ask, 'Who are you here for?' I say, 'Kiah Duggins' and they take their finger and start tracing the list of names on this piece of paper, and they flip the paper, and they trace their finger down the page one more time, and they flip the paper again. And that's when I realize there's a lot more people than just four people on this flight,” Adrian tells NPR. Adrian says the days and weeks that have followed have "basically felt like being in emotional hell."

"There are reminders of Kiah everywhere,” he says. “Her glasses are on the nightstand. Her clothes are in the closet. Little curls of her hair are scattered around. I hear echoes of her voice sometimes, especially when I see something and I want to turn to her and say, like 'hey, check this out' then I realize I can't do that anymore. So it's just been a new level of pain that I didn't know I could experience."

Adrian tells NPR that talking about Kiah is helping him get by. "My hope is that I can sort of exorcise the pain that keeps building in my chest," he says. "I also wanted to talk about Kiah. I think the more that I can plant just a little sense of who this person was in people's minds, the more that she can live on, in a sense."

Kiah Duggins was a Harvard Law School Class of 2021 graduate and a civil rights lawyer who was fighting for the rights of vulnerable people and against the abuse of power in the legal system. Kiah was also an incoming professor at Howard University School of Law. Her dream was to shape the next generation of Black civil rights lawyers. Prior to enrolling in law school, Kiah was selected as a Fulbright Scholar and taught English in Guanshan, Taiwan.

Condolences to Adrian, Kiah’s family, and anyone who knew and loved her. She seemed like the kind of person you would want to call friend. May she rest in peace.