Met a pilot Sunday; he’s dead Monday

I didn’t know him personally. We crossed paths at a fly-in pancake breakfast event open to the public. I got my IR through the flight school he was working for. He was about 10 years my senior and had a really friendly personality. I learned his best friend grew up in the same area as me and we chatted about that for maybe 10 minutes.

Last words he said to me after he saw my baby boy and my wife walking up to say they were ready to go was “You have a beautiful family, you’re really lucky. See you around!”

Local news headlines the next day were about an instructor who died in a plane crash out of my local airport on a training flight. The following day the press released name and photo, and it was him. The guy I just met. The news was talking about his wife and kid and the tragedy to lose their father.

Still shook up over that. I don’t really have a point to this story, just wanted to vent some.