Christine Snyder, 32: ‘She was really a shining light. She could light up any room’

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - Christine Snyder was “in love with life,” her husband said.

The 32-year-old was an arborist and project manager for the environmental group Outdoor Circle, and was on her way home to the islands on Sept. 11, 2001, from a conference on the East Coast.

She was on board hijacked Flight 93 along with Hawaii resident Georgine Corrigan when it crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board.

“We were all hoping and praying that she hadn’t made that flight,” said Steve Mechler, who worked with Snyder at the Outdoor Circle.

Mechler said Snyder made a significant impact at the Outdoor Circle and in the broader community. “She was really a shining light. She could light up a room,” he said.

Snyder and her husband, Ian Pescaia, had been married for just three months when she died.

The two met in high school, and both worked at the Outdoor Circle.

“She was in love with life,” he said. “She didn’t have a bitter spot in her.”

Snyder’s stepmother, Jan, told the Honolulu Advertiser in 2009 that living with her loss was a daily challenge. “Time doesn’t heal but it does smooth out those godawful feelings,” she said.

“They’ve started to be not so much on the surface.”

Snyder’s mother-in-law, Leslie Adams, said Snyder was passionate about Hawaii, protecting the land, and spending time with her family.

She told United Heroes, a group dedicated to remembering the victims of Flight 93, that “Ian and Chris were not only beloved husband and wife, they were soulmates. Chris was such a presence of light wherever she went that everyone she knew always remembered her, even after one introduction.”

Before her death, Snyder oversaw a beautification project at Magic Island in which scores of trees were planted. She said the project was intended to bring a “lei of aloha” to the park.

In Snyder’s honor, the city erected a memorial bench at Magic Island and planted a milo tree.

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