Ex-N.O. Trainer Dies In Taiwan's Worst Jet Crash
Submitted by N.O.V.A. July 2005
Times Picayune 	02-18-1998


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One of the handful of Americans who died Monday in the China Airlines jet crash in
Taiwan was a former resident of New Orleans who worked as a personal trainer at local
health clubs.

Christopher Cory, 29, lived in the French Quarter and Mid-City for about 2 1/2 years in
the early 1990s and worked at the Premier Health Club in Metairie and Downtown Fitness
Center at the foot of Canal Street, friends said Tuesday. He moved to Boston about a
year and a half ago.

"He was a wonderful man who always made everyone feel good," said Dickey Smith, owner
of the Guy Keefer Salon in the Royal Orleans Hotel.

Smith said Cory was his personal trainer as well as a friend. The friendship, he said,
continued after Cory's departure from the Big Easy. Smith visited him in Cape Cod.

Investigators reconstructing the route of China Airlines Flight CI676 focused Tuesday
on why the jet veered off a seemingly routine approach at the last moment, crashing and
exploding into flames just short of the runway.

It was Taiwan's worst plane crash, killing 203 people - everyone on board, including at
least four Americans, and seven on the ground - and destroying a string of homes near
Taipei's airport Monday.

Soldiers, police and firefighters picked through shoes and engine parts Tuesday,
looking for remains and personal items to help identify the victims. Cries of grieving
relatives mixed with Buddhist funeral chants at a blue-and-orange tent nearby.

Most of the dead were tourists returning home from the resort island of Bali, but
Taiwan's Central Bank governor, his wife and four other finance officials also were
aboard.

Cory was a former Marine helicopter pilot who lived in Pensacola, Fla., before moving
to New Orleans, said Lawrence Moran, a hairstylist in New Orleans. In the summer of
1996, the two were roommates in Provincetown, Mass., a fishing village and art colony
on the tip of Cape Cod, Moran said.

"He was just a beautiful, amazing young guy, like a little brother to me," Moran said.
"He always had good things to say about everyone."

News received Monday night that Cory was aboard the Airbus A-300 that crashed in a
rural area of Taiwan "was very shocking," Moran said.

"It was just a fluke trip that came about, and he went on it with a friend," Smith
said.

In Boston, Cory spent much of his time writing and working as a personal trainer and
nutritionist.

"He mostly wrote in a journal, but he was working on a book on some rain forest," said
Keith Harris, a Web designer in New Orleans who knew Cory for more than three years.
"He loved the environment. He wore patchouli oil and listened to the Indigo Girls."

His favorite haunts included Kaldi's coffeehouse and the Old Dog New Trick vegetarian
restaurant in the French Quarter. Cory spent most of his time in New Orleans
exercising.

"We'd been planning since last summer to go to Amsterdam in August to compete in a
body-building competition," Moran said. "I'll miss him tremendously."

Eighty-six victims had been identified by Tuesday.

Although the plane crashed in fog and light rain, investigators were looking elsewhere
for a cause. Initial information suggested that despite the weather, the veteran pilots
had been on a routine approach until just before the accident.

Flight data records had been recovered and sent to the United States for analysis,
airport officials said.

This story includes reports from The Associated Press