About 25 MSU hospitality business students in New York City have not been able to get on a plane to come home.

Monday morning American Airlines Flight 587 crashed into a residential area of Queens, New York. The Airbus A300 was en route from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the Dominican Republic with 260 people on board.

Authella Collins Hawks, director of the Student and Industry Resource Center at the School of Hospitality Business, said the students and herself had to stay an extra night in New York City at The Waldorf=Astoria hotel after airports were shut down and city security was heightened.

Most students arrived at the School of Hospitality Business’ annual celebration of leadership event in New York on Friday and were scheduled to leave Monday, but were delayed until a 9 a.m. flight today.

“It’s been a little stressful,” Collins Hawks said. “But everyone is safe and sound.”

She said one student was shaken after she was told to immediately exit the plane shortly after she boarded it Monday morning.

MacKenzie Mehner, a hospitality business senior and Hospitality Association president, said three students got stuck in a taxi for more than an hour after the whole city came to a halt Monday morning.

“Less people have been out (Monday),” she said. “Things were really at a standstill - it’s a sobering atmosphere.”

She said it was not possible to get into the city for a while Monday morning, but the city had picked up as more evidence pointed toward an accident-related crash.

The students did not see the crash, but some are leery about flying back to MSU.

“I’ve noticed that a couple of students were looking for some reassurance and others chose to drive back,” Mehner said. “I’m going to (fly) knowing there is no terrorist relations.”

Other MSU students on campus say they were abruptly reminded of the Sept. 11 attacks when they heard of the crash in residential Queens - 15 miles from Manhattan.

“I thought at first it was a terrorist attack,” landscape architecture senior Nate Griswold said. “But now it sounds like an airplane failure.”

But Griswold said he isn’t ready to re-enter the skies yet, either.

“I’ll fly, but not until the holidays are over,” he said. “If (terrorists) are going to do anything, it’ll be then.”

Sharon Ramont, a travel consultant at Meridian Travel, 1745 W. Grand River Ave. in Okemos, ,said she doesn’t think the holidays will affect air travel as long as the crash is deemed an accident.

“It’s pretty hard to tell whether it is terrorism or an accident,” she said. “If it’s strictly an accident, traveling will continue to get better.”

Despite the recent crashes, English senior Cheryl Light said she doesn’t have any qualms about flying.

“I might be a little nervous about it,” she said. “I would try and take necessary precautions and make sure I had everything in order before I left.

“But I’d do it anyway. If it happens or doesn’t happen, it is out of my hands.”

Immediately after the crash, investigators began gathering information and investigating the plane’s route. The National Transportation Safety Board became the lead investigative agency following the crash.

“We don’t speculate on what the cause may be,” said Tammy Jones, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Retired civil engineering Professor Frank McKelvey agreed it is too early to speculate on whether terrorists or mechanical failure were responsible for the latest crash.

“Clearly, there was some sort of catastrophe involved,” said McKelvey, who now does consulting work in airport design. “That’s all I can gather.”

Kevin Ryan, chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-Brooklyn, said reports indicate the crash was not terrorist-related, but is drawing no conclusions.

Despite the cause, Ryan said the Rockaway community was hit especially hard because many of its firefighters, police officers and Wall Street workers were killed Sept. 11.

“There have been funerals nearly every day since Sept. 11,” he said. “It’s almost too much to take.”

Staff writer Steve Eder contributed to this report.

Alison Barker can be reached at barkera6@msu.edu.