Co-Pilot Had ‘Zest for Life’ : Eulogy: Friends, family recall victim of Santa Ana jet crash as dedicated family man, athlete who spent 20 years as a seaman before becoming a pilot.

About 150 friends and relatives gathered here Monday to remember John Odis McDaniel, 49, co-pilot of the chartered jetliner that crashed Wednesday in Santa Ana, killing all five people aboard, including the two top executives of the In-N-Out Burger chain.

At a service held at the Church of Our Fathers at Forest Lawn Memorial Park, friends who rose to speak about McDaniel remembered him as an accomplished athlete, a dedicated family man and an individual with an incredible “zest for life” who began a second career as a pilot after spending 20 years at sea as a merchant seaman.

“He always had a smile on his face, and he always had something positive to say,” recalled Pete Hambrick, 49, of Huntington Beach, a close friend of McDaniel. “The enthusiasm that he had for life, he would have liked us to be that way.”

An avid sportsman, McDaniel loved camping, surfing, sailing and flying and was determined to have the biggest and latest in sports equipment--whether it be a 36-foot racing boat or the biggest surfboard, Hambrick said. When he bought a motorcycle, he bought two so he could ride with a friend, he said.

McDaniel was always ready and willing to try something new, Hambrick said. At age 45, he urged his friends to try ice-skating, an adventure that only lasted one hockey game, but “at least he tried,” Hambrick said.

A native of Australia, McDaniel moved with his family to Long Beach at age 6 and graduated from Millikin High School in 1962. He received a bachelor’s degree in navigation at the Maritime Academy in Vallejo.

McDaniel devoted 20 years of his life to the merchant marine, ferrying munitions to Vietnam and later serving as a captain on supertankers that cruised from Alaska to Panama. After doing aerobatics and stunt flying as a hobby, he turned to piloting for Martin Aviation out of John Wayne Airport in 1987.

As a seaborne skipper, McDaniel had an “unblemished” record, Hambrick said, except for once when he nosed a power boat onto a sand bar in Huntington Harbour. “For a second there, I think he was chagrined but he laughed it off, a smile came back, and he blamed me for putting the boat in the wrong position when I gave it to him,” Hambrick said, drawing laughs from family and friends.

When another friend, Tim Carey, 46, of Seal Beach, met McDaniel 25 years ago in the merchant marine, they became instant best friends, said Carey, his voice breaking with emotion.

“We spent more time on that ship together for two years than we did at home,” he said. Yet McDaniel was very close to his family, once taking six weeks off to be with them on a vacation.

Like most of McDaniel’s friends and family, Carey remembered his best friend as a man who could do just about anything he put his mind to. “When he set his mind on a goal, he accomplished it,” Carey said.

Perhaps the most treasured memory of those attending the memorial was McDaniel’s affable character and a cheerful attitude toward life that influenced those around him.

“John loved people. . . . He made sure you were going to be on adventures when you were around him,” said the Rev. Ralph Harris, who said McDaniel taught others to live life “full throttle.”

“I believe it’s his legacy--full throttle,” he said.

McDaniel is survived by his former wife of 23 years, Heather McDaniel, who remained close to the pilot even after their divorce in 1991; a daughter, Timory McDaniel, 20, and son, John McDaniel, 22, all of Seal Beach, and his mother, Norma Kingman of Long Beach.

A public memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa for Richard Snyder, 41, the president of the family-owned In-N-Out Burger chain founded by his father, and for Philip West, 37, the restaurant chain’s executive vice president.

The two men failed to heed a company policy that they never fly together on the same plane, and both were killed when the chartered, twin-engine Westwind 1124A crashed in Santa Ana while approaching John Wayne Airport for a landing.