Wichita college student in deadly plane crash had ‘keen interest in helping others’

Grace Maxwell, a 20-year-old Wichita native, was on her way back to school when American Airlines Flight 5342 collided with a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter near Ronald Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C., killing 67 on board both aircraft.

Maxwell — one of the 60 passengers on Flight 5342 — had returned to her hometown to attend her grandfather’s funeral and was headed back to finish her junior year at Cedarville University, a private evangelical Christian institution about 25 miles east of Dayton, Ohio. Wichita has no direct flights to Ohio, but it does offer a connecting flight with a layover at Reagan Airport.

She was working on a degree in mechanical engineering with a minor in biomedical engineering. She was also a regular on-air personality on the campus radio station.

Her name will forever be linked to the worst commercial aviation disaster in a generation, but some of her friends say they will remember her for the “ordinary moments” they shared.

“That rings so true with Grace,” Logan Carter, a friend from Cedarville University who graduated last year, said. “But she made those ordinary moments into something special by being our friend.”

Carter said those moments included him teasing her about “a huge crush” she had on Bucky Barnes, a character played by actor Sebastian Stan in the upcoming Marvel superhero movie “Thunderbolts.”

“She was so excited to see that movie when it came out,” Carter said.

And they included simple gestures.

“My friend and I were attending our university’s prom together,” Carter said. “It was for juniors and seniors, and Grace was a sophomore at the time, so she couldn’t go. But when my friend and I were getting pictures around the lake at our school, we suddenly heard a voice: ‘You guys look great!’ She had seen us from inside the Bible building and ran to burst out the front doors just to tell us that as we walked past.”

And those ordinary moments also included jokes.

“The last message exchange she ever sent to our group chat was ‘I think the devil is trying to keep me out of England,’” Carter said. “She was planning her missions trip with our school in the spring. Our other friend responded to her, ‘Well if the devil protesteth so then obviously you have to go (girls trip?)‘”

Carter said he was in an airport about to board a flight in Colorado Springs when he found out about Maxwell’s death.

“The gate agent handed me a ticket stub to check my luggage,” Carter said. “It was too large for the overhead storage. I looked up at him with tears in my eyes and thanked him, my mind moving on auto pilot. I put that ticket stub in my left hand. I didn’t let go. I didn’t realize I was gripping it for that long until I got off my flight a few hours later in Minneapolis. I couldn’t think about anything besides Grace.”

Laurel Brown, another friend from Cedarville University, said she will never forget hearing Grace Maxwell for the last time on the student-run radio station.

“She was talking about how she was going home for her grandfather’s funeral and was explaining her feelings of grief and how tough it was missing him,” Brown said. “But she ended her break with hope, explaining that she knew she would see him again one day in heaven. And it was comforting to know that he was with his savior. The fact that her last break was about grief and loss is what sticks in my mind. We had no idea that just a few days later we would be mourning losing her.”

Brown said the last time she saw Maxwell, she asked her to pray for her family and said she was concerned about coming back to school because she would have to catch up on exams and tutoring sessions.

“If I had known that was the last time I’d see her, I would’ve given her the biggest hug and never let go,” Brown said.

“Grace loved Jesus so much and she overflowed with positivity and encouragement,” Brown said. “She was a wonderful, caring friend. And could light up a room with her laugh, it was just infectious.”

Cedarville University described Grace Maxwell in a statement as “a thoughtful, quiet student leader.”

“Grace was scheduled to serve on a project team this semester that would begin to create a hand-stabilizing device for a differently enabled Dayton boy so he could feed himself rather than relying on others,” the statement said.

“Grace was a quiet person with a keen interest in helping others through engineering,” said Dr. Tim Norman, who served as her secondary adviser, in the statement.

Dean Maxwell, Grace’s father, said Thursday morning that his family had not been contacted by authorities about his daughter. He said he did speak to American Airlines’ Care Team a few times, and that they would call him back when they had information.

He said he doesn’t know when he’ll get more information and whether she is among the passengers who have been recovered from the Potomac River. Authorities have said no one survived.

“We don’t know,” Maxwell said. “We do know she was on the plane.”

Grace Maxwell was the first passenger identified that is from Wichita. Several other passengers, many with connections to U.S. Figure Skating, and crew members, who were from Charlotte, have been identified through social media posts and interviews with news outlets across the country. Others from the Wichita area have also been identified since Wednesday’s crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board and American Airlines have not released a list of passengers.

This story was originally published January 30, 2025 at 1:34 PM.