I understand your pain. My best mate who joined me in learning to fly didn't show up one day, he in fact turned up the night before and stole one of the Tobagos and committed suicide in front ofhis ex girlfriends house at Bankstown airport. That was 30 yrs ago and I still miss him at times.

 

RIP to your mate he went out doing what he loved

My deepest condolences

Wow, that's rough Stephen, sorry to hear.

R.I.P.  :Praying:

Wow, that's rough Stephen, sorry to hear.

 

I am supposed to be professional enough to be able to handle stuff like this, but not this time. The picture of Jeff and I together in Lancaster County Pa. did me in.

 

His second to last flight was on Thanksgiving day, Thursday morning from Labanon Airport in southern Oregon, where he was the General Manager. He took the Cessna 177 Cardinal (N1939Q), pictured below, for a nice long flight video taping the Santiam River and Snow Peak in the the Willamet Valley area. 

 

http://lebanair.com/aviation-services/aircraft-rentals

 

He edited the videos and got them up on Youtube the next evening, Friday, November 23rd. Here is the Snow Peak one.

 

 

That same evening he recorded his last music video (Where could I go but to the Lord), uploading it on Saturday the 24th. That same evening he wrote me an email giving me the links to all three videos. He joked that maybe someday he could sing that, song and "Gloryland" at his own funeral. (It was a joke, ironic but nothing else.) Of course, we did.

 

 

He expressed his wish that he could afford to fly the Cardinal to New Brunswick so he could test fly some heavy iron on my computer. I'm not sure he was mocking me, but likely so. He reminded me that there is a standing invitation that if I could get to Oregon I would have a bunk and perhaps even enough free air time for a pilots license, if I lied to the Doctor.

 

He actually wrote to make a confession. A month earlier he had hid $100.00 bill in my CD case of my truck, because I would refuse it otherwise. He figured he might as well tell me since it was too late for me to give it back. He was afraid I might lose it when pulling out a CD, and never know it.

 

I opened his email on Sunday morning the 25th, but was too busy to write him back that day. The next day, Monday afternoon a friend flew in from Portland with his RV6 he had recently bought, but was not qualified to do aerobatics with. Apparently Jeff was, so he was thrilled to test it out with him.

 

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=rv6+airplane&go=&qs=bs&form=QBIR#view=detail&id=37B17985EB3D2BCB290C4A75CC297D74DCB35B08&selectedIndex=12

 

Larry, his boss at the airport told me, in absolute agony, that he had a terrible feeling that something was wrong, and warned Jeff that it did not feel right. He says Jeff laughed it off and told him not to worry and that he would be back before dinner. A few minutes later at about 2500 feet, one of them, probably Jeff, snapped the RV6 to the left intending, it was assumed, to do a fast roll. A wing came off.

 

http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/11/experimental_rv6_airplane_in_f.html

 

On Friday November 30th, I met the Fire Chief at the accident site which had just been vacated by the NTSB and FAA. He had been the first on the scene and told me something that I was able to help relieve the family with. The left wing broke under the left seat where the spar connected to the cabin and the right wing. Apparently the wing detached immediately but crushed the canopy before it fluttered away. That might mean that they never had time to know they were about to die, a very good thing. They were having fun doing what they love one moment, and gone the next.

 

Everyone had assumed that someone else had called to tell me, so I did not get the call until Tuesday at supper time, but was on my way to Logan airport in Boston by 7:00 pm using Jeff's $100.00 US currency for gas and a meal on the way down. Next afternoon I was in Portland with the funeral held on Saturday December 1st a couple of days later, and home a couple days after that. I never mourned, and was able to keep everything and everybody else together, more or less, until now.  But there you go, people are unpredictable, and you never know what can trigger grief.  

 

It feels good to share it with my friends.

 

Kind regards,

 

PS:

 

After the funeral, at the huge Amish/Mennonite luncheon, some people sought me out because they heard I knew something about airplanes B)  who told me who they were, but I forget their names, but they owned Rv6s and Rv7s, and connected somehow somewhere that knew about the airplane. They insisted that it was not built right and therefore not a problem with the type. One of them said he did an inspection of the airplane and the spar's assembly point under the seats was nothing even close to specs and in his opinion was an accident waiting to happen. One guy said, "Poor Tebo, he never had a chance.

 

Thanks for reading.

I understand your pain. My best mate who joined me in learning to fly didn't show up one day, he in fact turned up the night before and stole one of the Tobagos and committed suicide in front ofhis ex girlfriends house at Bankstown airport. That was 30 yrs ago and I still miss him at times.

 

RIP to your mate he went out doing what he loved

It is weird, sometimes some things just don't get processed and stored away right, but keep fresh. Such a foolish thing to do, but when you are young, passionate, hot headed and jealous, things can happen quickly.

It is weird, sometimes some things just don't get processed and stored away right, but keep fresh. Such a foolish thing to do, but when you are young, passionate, hot headed and jealous, things can happen quickly.

Its a sad story. A bit of background..we both worked at hawker pacific an aircraft parts supplier

he was having an affair with a married greek girl who also worked at the company.

 

We both decided to get out and start a career as commercial pilots he 28 me 22 so we started s a full time course together (around 15k) and he ran into some financial difficulty around the time we both got our PPl's

 

We usually stayed at each others house at night to study together however he did not show up, no big deal and no mobile phones 30 yrs ago. The next thing as Im getting ready to go to flight school and I see a fatal accident report on TV at banks town airport and I was wondering who it was but upon arrival at the school I was greeted in the car park by the CFI and taken into a room and I honestly thought he was going to tell me that I failed my PPl or something but was then given the terrible news.

 

I was completely shocked as the wreckage was still about 30m from the school and the body was still there under a tarp. I went and said goodbye and for the next 6 months sat next to an empty chair

 

ps. dont mean to hi jack your thread but its a sad but interesting story.

 

the sad part is after the funeral the greek girls husband found out about the affair because she couldn't stop crying and turns out he left her a few weeks later.

:(  sad

I am supposed to be professional enough to be able to handle stuff like this, but not this time. The picture of Jeff and I together in Lancaster County Pa. did me in.

 

I respectfully disagree with you Stephen. You are supposed to be a human being, with feelings and emotions, who has just been through a traumatic event, for which there is no manual, no guidelines, no rules for how you must feel or for how long.

 

Grieve if you must, but please ensure you have someone dear to you help you keep perspective and remind you (if you need) that your friend, although sorely missed, would not want to cause you ongoing pain.

 

All the best,

 

Will

I am so late on this, sorry to hear about your loss.

Stephen,

After nearly 30 years as a funeral director, I can tell you there is no set schedule for grieving. Being professional has nothing to do with it either. That's what I thought when my mother died, but I learned we all have to grieve and we do it our own way and in our own time frame. It may take a very long time for you to adjust, but that's ok, it's your way to grieve. Just remember: you never get over it, you just learn to live with the loss.