7-year-old pilot trying to set world record when plane crashes, 3 dead in failed ‘adventure of a lifetime’

need to know

• On April 11, 1996, Jessica Dubroff, 7, died in a Cessna plane crash while attempting to become the youngest person to fly in America.

• The crash, which also killed her father and her pilot-instructor, raised questions about her parents’ judgment and whether children should fly planes.

• “They were a wonderful father and daughter who set out on the trip of their lives,” Dave Dubroff told PEOPLE, “and unfortunately there was an accident.”

Dave Dubroff still remembers the moment on April 11, 1996, when he learned that his 7-year-old half-sister, Jessica Dubroff, and her 57-year-old father, Lloyd, had been killed in a plane crash that also killed pilot and flight instructor Joe Reed.

“I was at work,” Dave, 66, of Concord, Calif., told PEOPLE, “and I heard a plane crash on the radio. I ran to a payphone and called the Cheyenne Police Department, who told me to call the sheriff’s department.”

“I was in denial and thought, ‘I’m sure everyone survived,'” he says. “Then they told me, ‘No, they all died on the flight.’

At the time, Jessica was attempting to become the youngest person to pilot a plane in the United States, a feat that drew national media attention — but the accident raised questions about her parents’ judgment and whether children should fly planes.

Entrepreneur Lloyd Dubroff moved to the Bay Area in 1968 with his then-wife, Lane, and two children, including Dave.

Although Dave says his father was often busy with work, he was still an attentive father. “He wasn’t home much,” he says. “But when he was, he was all there.”

In 1984, Lloyd, then divorced, met Lisa Blair Hathaway through a mutual friend. Although they never married, the two lived together for six years and shared three children, including Jessica, born in 1988.

As reported in People’s 1996 cover story Accident, Jessica’s childhood was unconventional. Raised by Hathaway, a New Age mother who described herself as a spiritual healer, Jessica was homeschooled and grew up without toys or children’s books.

Mother’s vision? That children should make their own way of life.

“Whatever [the kids] wanted, she supported them,” said neighbor Patty Sarabia The New York Times In 1996. “They believed they could do anything.”

After his relationship with Hathaway ended (Hathaway later said that he and Lloyd differed over her unorthodox views on child rearing), Lloyd married Melinda Anne Hearst in 1991.

Still, Lloyd and Hathaway remained close and at one point, Hathaway and her two children, Jessica and her brother Joshua, stayed with Lloyd’s new family for at least two months. Lloyd and Hathaway’s third child, Jasmine, would later be born in 1992.

speaking with the time In 1996, Kelly McKnight, who owns the farm where Jessica learned to ride horses, said her interest in aviation emerged on her sixth birthday, when her parents let her ride a plane and the pilot even let her take the controls.

“She was a wonderful girl,” Dave tells PEOPLE, “and of course loved to fly. That was her main hobby.”

Dave says his father was very supportive of Jessica’s interest in flying. “That’s the kind of father he was,” he says. “Whatever his children were interested in, he wanted to be involved with them in that activity.”

When Hathaway told pilot Joe Reed, 52, how he wanted his children to learn to fly, he quickly bonded with his youngest student, Jessica.

As noted in the 1997 NTSB report on the crash, in an ABC News interview with Jessica and her father before the crash, when asked where the idea for cross-country flight came from, the girl said it came from her father.

“I did at first,” Lloyd replied. After getting her mother’s approval, he told Jessica that she could “think about it a little bit,” but she replied, “No, it’s what I want to do.” “

By then, according to the NTSB report, Jessica had logged 33 hours of flight time. He did not have an FAA medical or pilot certificate, so officials described him in the report as a “pilot trainee.”

The trio decided they would depart from Half Moon Bay on April 10 and arrive in Falmouth, Mass., where Jessica was born, on April 12.

“I thought it was great,” Dave tells PEOPLE of his initial reaction to the trip. “I was happy for them that they were going to live it out. He would have been the youngest pilot to fly cross country and back.”

Chris Reid, the pilot’s son, tells PEOPLE that at the time, he never felt as grotesque as his father’s adventures. He says he believes his father, a stockbroker who flew after his military service in Vietnam, saw the adventure as a way to shine a light on what he loved: aviation.

“I think Lloyd was like, ‘Yeah, let’s go. Can I be a part of it?’ “Chris Posit. “My dad was like, ‘Yeah, great. I got someone to pay for me to fly my plane. I got a babysitter for a kid who’s bringing media attention to aviation.’ And for Jessica, I know she was like, ‘Hey, I’m here. I’m doing it and let’s have fun.’ “

The last time Dave saw his half-sister was shortly before the trip, when he took a short flight with her behind the controls. “I was shocked,” he recalls.[at] How in command she was.”

“There was a lot of media,” said Chris, who was actually there when the Cessna took off from Half Moon Bay on April 10 for its maiden voyage.

“I was able to say goodbye to dad, ‘Hey, take it easy.’ He took off and that was it,” he added.

Later that day, the Cessna arrived in Cheyenne where the three stopped for the night.

According to the NTSB report, Lloyd called Jessica’s mother at the end of the first day of the flight and told her that Jessica had fallen asleep during part of the trip and that Joe had helped her land.

The next morning, April 11, the trio headed to Cheyenne Airport to resume flying, even though the forecast was full of wind, gusts and storms.

At 8:24 a.m. local time, about four minutes after takeoff, the Cessna crashed, killing all three on board.

Chris was flipping channels for the latest coverage of the flight when he heard the news, then waited for the phone to call the authorities.

His father’s funeral service was held four days later at Half Moon Bay. When it was over, Chris and his brother Matthew drove to Pescadero to serve as pallbearers for Jessica’s interment that same day.

“They took her casket on a horse and cart to the cemetery,” Dave recalls. “That was a really difficult service. There were a couple of people playing guitar and singing.”

“It was too much for me,” he adds. “So I left before they took him to his grave.”

The tragedy brought scrutiny to Jessica’s parents.

“Before the flight, they were getting positive press,” says Dave. However, he recalls that instead of being portrayed as a “wonderful father” who helped his daughter realize her dreams, he was called a stage father and a “bunch of untrue stuff”.

Dave’s worst memory of the media reaction was when he found the newspaper on a newsstand while visiting his uncle (Lloyd’s brother) and grandfather at San Francisco International Airport.

“I’ll never forget the cover the time Photos of Jessica and ‘Who Killed Jessica?’ ” he recalls. “I tried to get between my grandfather and uncle and the newsstand, so they wouldn’t see it. I don’t think I succeeded.”

Almost a year after their deaths, the NTSB released an official report on the accident.

Officials said Reid was handling the plane’s controls at the time of the attack. The probable cause of the crash was the decision to fly in bad weather conditions, officials said the plane was too heavy and Reid’s density altitude was higher than he was used to.

“Contributing to the pilot’s decision to fly,” read the report, “was the desire to follow an overly ambitious itinerary, due to media commitments.”

Chris says the NTSB’s findings were not a surprise to his family. “He made bad decisions,” he says of his father. “He risked it going up and tried to get out and punch out and storm out, and it didn’t work … there’s nothing to refute.”

Dave says it took him a while to get over the loss of Lloyd and Jessica.

“For the first 20 years, anniversaries were really hard,” shared Dave. “I was very emotional.”

Then, nearly a decade ago, he found peace by focusing on how grateful he was for the time they were able to spend together.

“They were a wonderful father and daughter who set out on the journey of their lives,” he says, “and unfortunately there was an accident.”

Never miss a story – sign up for The People’s Free Daily Newspaper Stay up to date on the best people have to offer, from celebrity news to human interest stories.

Dave says he has no doubt that Jessica would have become a “wonderful woman”, while the memories of her father’s love will always be close to her.

“My father was a very loving, warm, emotional man, and I realized how blessed I was to have him for 36 years,” he says. “So now on anniversaries, there are a lot of fond memories.”

Read the original article on People