Friends, family mourn those lost on Flight 587

NEW YORK (CNN) -- Friends, family members and well-wishers came together Sunday under a cool, clear sky on the coast of Queens to mourn the loss of 265 people who perished in last week's fiery crash of an American Airlines jet.

American Airlines Flight 587 was bound for the Dominican Republic, and many of its 251 passengers were Dominicans returning home or traveling to visit family. Nine crew members aboard the plane and five people on the ground also died in the crash.

The plane had been in the air less than three minutes when it plunged into the Rockaways, a quiet beach community across Jamaica Bay from John F. Kennedy International Airport. Many of the passengers aboard the plane were residents or had family members in Washington Heights, a Dominican neighborhood in Manhattan.

VIDEO Watch some of the memorial for the victims of Flight 587 held Sunday in New York City (November 18) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)    VIDEO: Firefighters, residents respond Witnesses describe crash  MORE STORIES Final minute 'a very wild ride' Chat: Probing Flight 587 Sailor back from war killed in crash Fact Sheet  INTERACTIVE: Gallery 1 | Gallery 2 Flight 587's final seconds A300 tail assembly Crash site map Tracking the wakes  RESOURCES: Airline releases victim list

Dominican Republican President Rafael Hipolito Mejia Dominguez joined New York Gov. George Pataki and New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at Jacob Riis Park, not far from the residential neighborhood where the Airbus A300 fell from the sky Monday morning.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christie Todd Whitman and U.S. Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer, both New York Democrats, were also on hand for the simple service, which included prayer and songs from several religions and in several languages.

The crash did more than rattle Rockaway residents from a typical Monday reverie -- the neighborhood was recovering from the shock of losing more than 60 people, many of them police and firefighters, in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.

The vertical tail and rudder snapped off the plane during flight, and investigators are looking into that as one possible cause of the crash as well as what role turbulence -- created by a plane that took off moments before Flight 587 -- may have played.