Military community in Germany mourns families killed in Austrian cable car fire

By BURT HERMAN
Associated Press Writer

WUERZBURG, Germany (AP) - Neighbors in this tight-knit military community remembered Maj. Michael C. Goodridge on Monday as a father who did everything he could to help his two young boys adapt to life on an overseas military base.

He helped out with his 7-year-old's Cub Scout troop, coached soccer and T-ball teams and took the family to weekend football games. On a long Veteran's Day weekend, Goodridge, his wife Jennifer and sons Michael and 5-year-old Kyle joined a military-affiliated ski trip to neighboring Austria.

The family from Texas are among eight U.S. military personnel and their relatives who are missing and presumed dead in a cable car fire at Kitzsteinhorn mountain in Kaprun, Austria, that killed at least 159 people Saturday. U.S. military recovery teams joined the effort to identify bodies yesterday and were collecting the belongings of the missing, including the Goodridges' green SUV parked in front of the Sport Hotel, its ski racks empty.

The other members of the Wuerzburg ski club who are still missing - 1st Lt. Erich R. Kern, 25, of Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., and 2nd Lt. Carrie L. Baker, 23, of Florida - had just become engaged last week.

Two other missing Americans traveled with another ski club from the Kaiserslautern area, near the U.S. military's Ramstein Air Base. They are Paul A. Filkil, 46, and his son Ben, 15, of Deerfield, Mich. Filkil's wife, Karen Kearney Filkil, is a civilian who works for the Air Force's Warrior Preparation Center in Germany.

Despite being told that their son and his fiancee were seen boarding the doomed cable car, Kern's parents haven't given up hope yet. "We don't know yet for sure. They didn't find them yet," his mother Angela Kern said in a telephone interview from her home.