Family Bids Hero Farewell : Navy Pilot Lost in Crash Is Recalled as Intense, Yet Playful

Charles “Bob” Francis knew his son, Tom, better than anyone else. But when the time came Sunday to eulogize the Navy pilot whose plane mysteriously crashed in the Pacific Ocean off San Diego last month, the father, his voice breaking, had to wing it.

“Every time I picked up a pen, I couldn’t get anything down on paper,” he said with eyes full of tears. “I’m just going to tell you how I felt about my little hero.”

About 200 people who filed into the Bethany Bible Fellowship church to honor Lt. Thomas Francis heard how the 27-year-old pilot and his father were inseparable.

Lt. Francis has been missing at sea and presumed dead since his EA-6B Prowler jet crashed Feb. 24.

Two other fliers survived the crash and were rescued. A fourth crew member, Lt. Cmdr. James Dee, died at the scene.

During the last three months, there have been eight crashes involving Navy aircraft.

The latest crash, involving Lt. Francis, prompted the Navy’s Pacific Fleet to reassess safety procedures for all planes. It also left the Francis family searching for answers.

“We’re trying to understand why this happened,” said Bob Francis. “I can only think that Tom was on loan to us from God. He was destined for greater things.”

From the time he proudly wore two “It’s A Boy!” pins to commemorate Tom’s birth to the last words he shared with him days before receiving word of the tragedy, Bob Francis said, he “idolized” his only son.

“He made my time on earth easy,” the 52-year-old U.S. Postal Service maintenance mechanic said in his eulogy. “He was so focused and determined.”

Noting that his son rarely opened up to those outside the family, Bob Francis added: “He kept to himself a lot. But, [he] always took care of business and knew what to do.”

A collage of childhood and military portraits of Lt. Francis stared out from the church altar Sunday.

One photograph pictured Lt. Francis in his Navy officer’s uniform standing next to Courtney Taylor, whom he was scheduled to marry July 6.

“He really loved her,” his mother, Bernice Francis, said during the memorial service. “It would have been quite a ceremony.”

After the memorial, Darrel Barnett, a longtime friend, added: “Nothing would have stopped him from marrying her. He always knew what he wanted.”

Barnett, who met Lt. Francis when they played Little League baseball and remained close, said it was easy to tell what Francis would do with his life.

And Lt. Francis was “wacky,” Barnett said. “He would make up nicknames for everybody he knew. He called me ‘Baitor.’ To this day, I don’t know why.”

Friends remembered Lt. Francis’ intensity, adding that his playful sense of humor surfaced when least expected.

“He was a very quirky roommate,” Salim Rahemtulla, who was in the ROTC program with Francis at USC, said after the service.

“He’d hover over his books, then turn around and light a firecracker in your room,” Rahemtulla said. “ . . . I don’t think there was anyone who had a greater impact on people than he did.”

The person who felt that impact most was his father.

Visiting his son’s Fountain Valley home recently, Bob Francis said he couldn’t resist sleeping in Tom’s bed.

“I woke up and looked around at all his belongings,” he said. “Everything indicated he’d come back home. It just doesn’t turn out that way.”