It’s been over a year since the country was shaken by multiple back-to-back plane crashes. On January 29, 2025, a passenger plane collided with a military helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. My best friend, Kiah Duggins, was on this flight. Kiah, age 30, and 66 more passengers and crew members lost their lives that night. Just two days later on January 31, a medical transport plane crashed in the middle of Northeast Philadelphia, in the city I’ve called home for almost 10 years.

These policies won’t bring my friend Kiah back, or the lives lost here in Philadelphia, but they will make the world safer, more just, and full of love.

In the immediate aftermath, people postponed or cancelled trips, explaining  planes are just falling out of the sky these days. The uneasiness was palpable. These crashes left communities devastated, families grieving, victims with lifelong injuries and generational trauma.  Out of all of this tragedy, there is one potentially hopeful outcome: the ROTOR Act, which passed unanimously in the U.S. Senate in December, is currently under consideration in the House. The act updates aviation regulations in ways that could prevent such tragedies  from happening again.

Friendship, happiness and fight

I met Kiah in 2017. We were both in Taiwan on a Fulbright grant, and Kiah’s brightness, wit and sense of humor immediately captivated me. After a 12-hour flight, we got on a bus and both of us made the same Spongebob joke. No one else got it, but I got an instant friend. We made several other friends along the way and dubbed ourselves the “Gal Pals” (because we were 22 years old and why not?). Together we learned that love isn’t just romance, it’s about friendship. These women, the Gal Pals, became some of the most life-changing relationships of my life.

After we finished Fulbright Taiwan, the Gal Pals moved all over the country and I moved to Philadelphia to teach special education in The School District of Philadelphia. I fell in love here, got married here, bought a house here, attended graduate school here, and am becoming a seasoned teacher here. This spring, I will begin to raise a Philly baby here, a child who will never meet their Aunt Kiah. I love this city and grieve for all those affected by the crash here. I know firsthand that the pain doesn’t go away when the cleanup is finished.

Kiah was happy as a form of protest. She invested in her friends and community as a form of revolution.

I fight the urge to be angry because Kiah was not an angry person. As a Black woman in privileged spaces like Fulbright and Harvard Law School, she was no stranger to injustices, big and small. However, she handled these wrongdoings with such grace, poise, and unbridled joy. She did not “let it go,” but knew that if others robbed her of her joy and passion, they won. And Kiah Duggins never let them win. She was happy as a form of protest. She invested in her friends and community as a form of revolution. She was silly, danced, and laughed as a form of retaliation against a system who tried to wear her down. So I too, live with love and joy in my heart as a tribute to Kiah’s legacy.

However, Kiah always rolled up her sleeves and got the work done towards creating a more just and loving world. She used this passion to fight injustices in her work as a civil rights lawyer and soon to be professor at Howard University. She was a fierce social justice warrior and envisioned a world where Black girls could thrive, creating a nonprofit at a young age aimed at providing mentorship to young underprivileged girls, called Kiah’s Princess Project. Of course, even her nonprofit that closes the achievement gap is full of whimsy and magic. That was Kiah Duggins for you.

Keeping travelers — and a legacy — safe, through ROTOR

In love and in justice just like Kiah, I am urging lawmakers to pass the ROTOR Act through the House. The Senate already unanimously passed the bill. It’s now in the House of Representatives, where, if we’re interested in preventing more tragedy,  it needs to pass expeditiously. The act has commonsense reforms that end hidden flights, increase technology so pilots can see other aircrafts, and increase audits to continue increasing air safety. 

Kiah’s family is involved in a network called “Families of Flight 5342.” The group is working hard through their grief to make the skies safer for us all by advocating for several reforms. These policies won’t bring my friend Kiah back, or the lives lost here in Philadelphia, but they will make the world safer, more just, and full of love, like Kiah worked tirelessly to create in her 30 short years on Earth.

If these things were put in place with fidelity, I’d be inviting my friend Kiah to the baby shower of my first child. Instead, I have to choose love and fight for a safer world for my unborn child. I urge you to call your U.S. Representative — reminder, that’s Brendan Boyle, Dwight Evans or Mary Gay Scanlon for Philadelphia residents — and tell them that you support the ROTOR Act (S2503) so that we can all fly safely and honor my beautiful friend, Kiah Duggins.

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