NEW LONDON, Conn. — A Connecticut man who lost his wife and their 4-year-old daughter in the 9/11 terrorist attacks has died of cancer. David McCourt was 71.
McCourt died Thursday of metastatic melanoma, Thomas L. Neilan & Sons Funeral Home in New London told The Associated Press on Sunday.
McCourt's wife, Ruth, 45, and their daughter, Juliana, were aboard United Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles to meet a friend of Ruth's at Disneyland. Their plane struck the south tower of the World Trade Center.
The friend was aboard the other plane that hit the north tower.
Ruth McCourt's brother was working in one of the World Trade Center towers that day but escaped.
In January 2002, David McCourt said he had considered suicide.
"Ruth and Juliana were my life and my passion," he told an audience at a New London synagogue. "I was going to end it all. If faith could justify taking these two beautiful creatures, I just didn't want to go on. But something kept me going."
"It's been a journey of spiritual awakening to go from where I was," McCourt said. "If you don't have the spiritual awakening, you don't survive."