A gay couple on their way home to Los Angeles from Boston were among those killed when United Airlines Flight 175 was hijacked Tuesday and crashed into the second tower of New York's World Trade Center, reports Louisville, Ky.'s WAVE-TV. 

Ronald Gamboa and his partner of 13 years, Dan Brandhorst, were traveling with their 3-year-old adopted son, David. "When [Ronald] didn't call, my fears got worse," said Gamboa's mother, Dr. Renee Gamboa of Anchorage, Ky., who had seen the news reports of the jetliners crashing into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "I heard that another plane crashed and that it was United Airlines from Boston to L.A.," Gamboa said, adding that it was a fluke her son was even on that flight. "He never takes an 8 o'clock," she said. "I don't know why he took that 8 o'clock flight." 

Mrs. Gamboa said her son was a very caring person and visited her quite often. "He was here for a few days and left Tuesday, and he kissed me good-night and said, 'I'll see you on the 21st,'" she said.

If anyone would have dared to take on armed hijackers in an attempt to save United Airlines Flight 93 from being used as a weapon of mass murder by hijacking terrorists, it would have been someone like openly gay passenger Mark Bingham, said Bryce Eberhart, a friend who played on the same gay rugby team as Bingham. "In my mind, it's no coincidence that Mark was on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania," Eberhart said. Of the four airplanes that were hijacked Tuesday, three of them hit their apparent targets--two striking the World Trade Center in New York City and a third crashing into the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. But Flight 93 crashed in rural Pennsylvania, outside Pittsburgh, leading many to believe that the hijackers of that flight failed in using the plane as a tool for further destruction.

Preliminary reports, based on cell-phone calls between several passengers on the flight and family members, indicate that at least three male passengers on Flight 93 were determined to struggle with the hijackers in an attempt to derail the terrorists. "I just know Mark was one of them," said Eberhart, who became friends with the 31-year-old Bingham about a year and a half ago while playing on a San Francisco gay rugby team called the Fog Rugby Football Club. "He was the kind of man who was incredibly inspiring to people, and I just know in my heart he was one of the true heroes to come out of this."

Bingham's mother, Alice Hoglan, also believes her son, who was sitting in the rear of the plane's first-class cabin, could very likely have been among the passengers who worked to foil the hijackers' plans. "The fact that he was so close to the action--it is likely that he was able to get at these guys," Hoglan said. "He was probably close to where the hijackers did their thing." Bingham also was among the passengers able to make a call--to his mother. Hoglan said her son began the conversation by saying, "Hi, mom. This is Mark Bingham," providing a clue to his state of mind as he spoke. He then told his mother that he loved her and added, "I'm calling you from the plane. We've been taken over. There are three men that say they have a bomb." The call then went dead.

Bingham, a University of California, Berkeley, graduate, owned his own public relations firm, the Bingham Group. The company was headquartered in San Francisco, with an office in New York City, and Bingham traveled between the two. He was on his way back to San Francisco when his flight, which departed from Newark, N.J., was hijacked. He reportedly loved to travel and had run with the bulls in Spain this past summer. "He was hungry for life. It was like he just couldn't get enough," Eberhart said, adding that he will especially miss the rugby songs Bingham loved to teach his teammates. "They were these funny, dirty little songs, and Mark would smile and do funny arm motions when he sang them."

For photographs and tributes to Bingham, go to the Web site for the Fog Rugby Football Club at www.sffog.org. --Mubarak Dahir