On Sunday June 4, 2023, a private Cessna airplane flew into restricted airspace in Washington, DC. After the pilot did not respond, most likely because he was unconscious, an emergency response was triggered. Two F-16 fighter jets flew at supersonic speeds causing a sonic boom to intercept it. The plane eventually crashed near Raphine, Virginia, killing the four people on board.
Mom Adina Azarian and 2-year-old Aria Azarian were among those who died. Adina struggled with infertility for years to have Aria. Friends recount the pair were inseparable.
Adina was a highly successful Realtor working for Keller Williams Realty in East Hampton and her own company, Adina Equities, in Manhattan. Her favorite job title by far was Mom. She worked so hard to achieve it, going through several rounds of IVF and having multiple miscarriages.
Childhood friend Tara Brivic-Looper believes the mother and daughter duo died just like how they lived: together. “It would be fitting that they are together,” she said. “I don’t think they ever weren’t together, so if Adina was going anywhere, Aria was always with her.”
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Tara admired her friend’s strength and resilience in her journey to motherhood. “She went through everything as a single woman to have a baby, and I can’t say since Aria’s been born, I don’t think I’ve seen her twice without her,” she added. “It was just the two of them every single day. That was what she always wanted.”
Another friend is still in disbelief over this tragic situation. “We work hard in our lives, and — especially us women — we become accomplished, and you’re in the papers, and you’re all over, everywhere, and what’s the next thing to look forward to? What’s the best legacy in life that you can leave? A family,” Judy Sahagian began.
“And that went with her. And that is so tragic. I would never have bet in a million years that this is how she would leave the world,” she went on to say.
“And her daughter dying with her. And all the trouble she went through to have a daughter — oh, my God,” Judy, a fellow real estate agent, concluded.
Adina was open about her journey to motherhood and posted about it on Facebook. “Three years ago I decided I wanted to choose to become a mother,” she wrote in 2020. “With my biological clock ticking, I ended up on a long journey of fertility treatments, IUI, IVF, multiple miscarriages, failed embryo transfers and more. I went inward and drew upon my own inner strength to keep going. It was hard but I knew deep down there would be a miracle if I did not give up.”
Aria was born on September 28, 2020. “I offer my story as a source of inspiration for any woman going through the same struggles with infertility or simply with the decision to create your own family on our own terms,” she continued. “Sometimes life takes you places where you didn’t imagine it at first but where there is faith, where there is courage, where there is God, there is also hope.”
