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Wednesday, February 02, 2000
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
LV loses a `beautiful person'
By Glenn Puit
Review-Journal
Kristin Mills loved being a flight attendant for Alaska Airlines.
She loved the travel, she loved the people she worked with and she loved meeting hundreds of new people every day.
The career choice cost Mills her life. Alaska Airlines confirmed Tuesday that the 26-year-old Las Vegas resident was one of the 88 people who perished on Alaska Airlines Flight 261. The MD-83 aircraft plunged into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California on Monday afternoon.
"She cherished her job, loved absolutely everything about it," her father-in-law, Jack Mills, said from his southeast Las Vegas home Tuesday night. "She was always happy, and she was one of those people you always loved to be around. A wonderful, happy, beautiful person."
Kristin Mills was working on the flight from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, to San Francisco. She was not one of the company's 30 employees who were on the aircraft because of discounted fares offered to workers, an airline spokeswoman said. After landing in San Francisco, the flight was scheduled to continue to Seattle, where Kristin Mills maintained a second home. Much of her family lives there.
"As far as I know, it was her regularly scheduled flight," Jack Mills said.
For the past 24 hours, Jack Mills and his loved ones had been glued to the national television news, watching reports of the crash. At first, they were trying to determine if there was the possibility of survivors. By Tuesday night, the grim reality that Kristin Mills could not have survived had set in.
"The whole thing has been terrible," Jack Mills said.
Jack Mills' son, David, married Kristin three years ago. The couple had been dating about 13 years, Jack Mills said, and Kristin lived in Las Vegas for at least the past 15 years.
On Monday afternoon David Mills -- who works for a roofing company in the Las Vegas Valley -- called his father-in-law with news that an Alaska Airlines plane was down.
"He didn't know at that time it was Kristin's," Jack Mills said.
A short time later, the airline called David Mills and informed him his wife's plane was missing. Jack Mills said David Mills then called his father's home, "screaming for someone to come over."
On Tuesday morning, David Mills boarded a plane for Seattle with the intention of consoling his wife's loved ones. Jack Mills and his family were expected to fly to Los Angeles this morning with tentative plans to meet their son there either today or on Thursday.
Kristin -- whose maiden name is Batdorf -- started her career with Reno Air. She joined Alaska Airlines in May, an airlines spokeswoman said.
Kristin and her husband shared a home in northwest Las Vegas, near U.S. Highway 95 and Centennial Parkway. Neighbors of the couple said they saw little of Kristin because she was always traveling. Those who did know her, though, said she was a caring and friendly woman.
"She was the sweetest person," said a next-door neighbor who declined to give her name or comment further.
Another neighbor, Toni Mangieri, said she had been watching TV reports on the crash since Monday night, and she was shocked to learn someone who was on the flight lived right next to her.
"I'm so sorry for the family -- I can't believe it," Mangieri said.
Kristin is the third Las Vegan to die in a major airline crash in less than two years. Jim Lucas, 73, and his wife, Ann, 75, were on Swissair Flight 111, which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean off Nova Scotia in September 1998. There were no survivors.
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Printable version of this story
Las Vegan Kristin Mills, pictured with husband David, was killed Monday when Alaska Airlines Flight 261 plummeted into the Pacific Ocean.
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