Cupertino Woman Among the Dead In Jetliner Crash
3 survivors also from Northern California
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Julie N. Lynem, Stacy Finz, Chronicle Staff Writers 

Friday, November 3, 2000 



As the wreckage of Singapore Airlines Flight
SQ006 burst into flames and belched cauldrons of
thick toxic smoke at the end of a stormswept Taipei
runway, Kevin Rice, a 47- year-old Davis
ecologist, managed to crawl from the back of the
Boeing 747-400 through a crack where the jumbo
jet had split in two. 

Just before the plane took off, Massoud Dabir, a
41-year-old Santa Cruz executive, had tried to stop
the pilot from flying into the torrential rain storm.
Dabir walked away from the crash uninjured. 

Rem Phang, a 56-year-old retired field worker from
Clovis, near Fresno, had gone to Taiwan to find a
cure for his asthma. He, too, was on the plane, and
now he's in a Taiwan hospital with second-degree
burns on 35 percent of his body. 

And the fourth Northern Californian -- Tina Eugenia
Yeh, a 39-year- old Cupertino woman -- never
made it out alive. 

They were four of the 47 American passengers
aboard the Singapore Airlines jumbo jet that
crashed on takeoff from Taipei's main airport
Tuesday night, killing 81 of the 179 people aboard.
Twenty-three of the dead were Americans. 

Friends and co-workers mourned Yeh's death
yesterday. The IBM accounts manager had been
visiting relatives in Taiwan with her father and aunt.
Her father, Ying Lieh ``Ron'' Yeh, of Avon, Conn.,
and aunt Chi Fua Yeh, of Houston, Texas, also died
in the wreck. 

``I'm still in shock, but I'm trying to make sure I
have all the good memories of her,'' said Cindy
Chock, a friend of Yeh's who also works at IBM in
San Jose. ``I'm still not quite believing that I won't
see her again.'' 

Friends described Yeh as a hard worker who was
dedicated to family and devoted to her friends. 

An only child, Yeh had been excited about the trip
to Taiwan. It was a time, Chock said, for her to
spend with her father and extended family overseas.

``She felt like she was going to chaperone them,''
Chock said. ``She even bought some luggage with
wheels. She was going to make the trip easier for
them.'' 

Yeh, a graduate of Yale University's business
school, worked at IBM on Cottle Road since 1995.
A native of Connecticut, she began her career at
IBM in 1988 on the East Coast before moving to
California. 

Her friend Greg Tuai, who lives in Seattle, devoted
yesterday to building a Web site to celebrate the
crash victim's life. 

``She was a very loving person,'' he said. 

In Clovis, Phang's family members were preparing
to fly to Taipei yesterday to be with him in the
intensive care unit of a hospital there. Phang,
according to the Fresno Bee, had gone to Taiwan
to find Chinese medicine that he hoped would cure
him of his asthma and other illnesses. 

Dabir's family could not be reached for comment.
His wife, Lori Dabir, told the Santa Cruz Sentinel
that her husband walked from his business-class
seat at the front of the plane to the cockpit and
warned the pilot to keep the plane on the ground. 

``He saw it was raining so hard, he went up to the
pilot and said, `Don't leave, there is no visibility,' but
the pilot said, `Everything is fine,' '' Dabir's wife told
the newspaper. 

Burn specialists were scheduled to examine Rice,
who was badly charred from his hands up to his
elbows. The University of California at Davis
ecology professor also received burns to his back,
leg and face. 

``Kevin is in fine spirits,'' said his wife, Jeanine
Pfeiffer, from a Taipei hotel room yesterday. ``He's
very coherent.'' 

Pfeiffer said she and her husband have been
discussing the crash in hopes that Rice can put it
behind him. 

``Kevin is an incredibly introspective and resilient
person,'' she said. ``He's alive, and it's
phenomenal.'' 

E-mail Julie N. Lynem at
jlynem@sfchronicle.com and Stacy Finz at
sfinz@sfchronicle.com

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