Crash Puts Spotlight on Gary Aliengena : Tony’s Father Called Adventurous, Skillful

With the spotlight focused squarely on his son’s efforts to circumnavigate the globe, Gary Aliengena has remained largely in the background during the “Friendship Flight” of the boy aviator, 11-year-old Tony Aliengena.

Until now. The crash of the expedition’s plane during takeoff Tuesday evening from a remote Alaskan airstrip with the elder Aliengena at the controls has suddenly thrust the 39-year-old real estate investor onto center stage.

Federal officials have launched an investigation of the accident, citing reports that Gary Aliengena may have improperly executed a takeoff with strong winds at his back and had more passengers aboard than was proper. Aliengena said Wednesday that he didn’t know what caused the crash and that it was a “question” whether the plane was overloaded.

But friends argue that Aliengena is a skilled pilot with two decades of experience. When it comes to flying, Aliengena doesn’t seem the type to make a blunder, they say.

Moreover, supporters maintain that Tony’s dad, an energetic man devoted to his family, has been careful to remain supportive of his adventurous son while not becoming a pushy parent, both in preparations for the around-the-world journey and during the trip itself.

“Other than his precocious ability to fly an airplane, Tony is in every respect a normal 11-year-old kid and his family is a normal American family,” said Pat Wiesner, a Denver trade magazine publisher who manned a chase plane for the first half of the trip. “You got on the ground, and it was like being on vacation with some neighbors down the street.”

Gary Aliengena, the second oldest of seven children in a working-class family from Palmer, Mass., is a driven man who worked his way up from a job as a truck driver to operating a trucking company to eventually breaking into the lucrative world of West Coast real estate.

He picked up his yearning to fly from his father, Jerry, who is also a pilot. Gary became a licensed aviator more than 20 years ago, and has since taken aerobatic lessons and tried sky diving. His mother, Connie, admits that she often is concerned about her son, whom she describes as something of a daredevil in his youth.

“I always worry about him,” she said. “Even as a boy, Gary was trying things, and I’d only find out afterwards. But he was always a good boy and trying to do things for other people.”

Few question Gary Aliengena’s bravado, either in life or in a plane. Although he took precautions during his son’s journey to ensure that all went safely, the elder Aliengena rarely fears venturing out in bad weather or testing his skills in an aircraft.

On the eve of the Atlantic crossing on June 16, for instance, Aliengena and Wiesner exchanged words because the chase plane pilot was considering putting three people from his aircraft aboard a commercial jet to reduce weight. “Pat, you’ve had a long time to prepare for this,” Aliengena barked angrily in a hotel room in Canada.

Wiesner downplayed the incident when asked about it Wednesday and declared that Aliengena is a good pilot.

“I don’t think Gary is an unsafe pilot. I think he is a safe pilot,” Wiesner said. “I let him take my son in his airplane. I have no negative thoughts about Gary as a pilot. As a matter of fact, I thought Tony and Gary were both good pilots.”

Articulate and possessed by a unwavering will to achieve, Aliengena served as perhaps the key driving force behind his son’s global journey.

During news conferences, it was Gary who hovered near Tony to elaborate on his son’s comments. At night, Aliengena would spend hours poring over maps and making telephone calls to clear up occasional glitches in the plans. Aboard the family’s single-engine Cessna 210 Centurion, the father always sat in the co-pilot seat beside his son, helping guide the buzz-top aviator on his trip around the world.

Among the entourage of up to 17 people who accompanied young Tony on his adventure, Gary was dubbed simply “The Boss.” He decided when people got up in the morning, he determined when they would eat or leave in the plane. While Tony remained fixed in the public eye, his father remained very much in control.

“Gary is much more of a go-getter than most people,” said Guy Murrel, a Costa Mesa consultant handling public relations for the trip. “Just to put a project like this together proves it. A lot of people told us it couldn’t be done in six months. But a lot of people are more conservative in their nature. Gary is more interested in getting things done than sitting around and worrying about what might happen.”

Despite his heavy hand in the planning and coordination of the journey, Aliengena has kept it in perspective, Murrel said. After all is said and done, the trip has remained Tony’s, he maintained.

And why not. Tony and his father are extremely close. They hug often, wear the same style clothes much of the time and share many of the same interests. Aliengena coaches his son’s Little League baseball team, watches his football games and often takes him to bicycle motocross races on the weekends when they’re not up in the sky together.

Even before the boy got home from his record-setting cross-country airplane trip in 1988, Tony already was talking about flying around the world, Murrel said. His father, recalling the boy’s bouts with airsickness during the bicoastal U.S. flight, doubted that it could be done but remained supportive, he recalled.

“It has always been Tony’s dream and Tony’s goal,” Murrel said. “Gary would never force his son to do anything he didn’t want. That’s not the kind of person he is.”