I think the plane was probably TWA 800 which happened just ten days earlier.

The L.A. Times had this, but no more about a Ho Lai:

May 6, 1995 | DON LEE, TIMES STAFF WRITER
In a Santa Ana garment maker's parking lot, lunch provides daily relief from the drudgery of minimum wage jobs for scores of Vietnamese workers. As music and cigarette smoke rise from their open car doors, some of them kick a soccer ball around. Others play cards across a strawberry carton. Mingling discreetly among them is Ho Lai, listening, comforting, offering hope--and a union card to sign.

Not sure what happened there so don't know if that's who he is referring to.