O.C. Native, ‘a Real Good Kid,’ Was One of the Pilots

A Newport Beach native was identified Thursday as one of the Air Force pilots of the plane that crashed into a remote hillside near the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, a crash that killed all 33 aboard, including U.S. Commerce Secretary Ron Brown.

Tim Shafer, 33, a 1980 graduate of Newport Harbor High School, was stationed in Germany, where he flew dignitaries throughout Europe, his sister said Thursday.

Susan Haydon, 36, said her family has been rocked by grief. Though her brother’s military career took him around the globe, his family always assumed he was out of harm’s way, she said.

“He was never flying fighters or planes with guns or anything like that,” Haydon said. “We always thought that it wasn’t going to happen to him. We always said, ‘He’s flying dignitaries and leaders around, he’ll be safe. I guess we were wrong, though.”

Shafer grew up in Newport Beach--where he was a Boy Scout and later a member of the Newport Harbor High track team--always dreaming of becoming a pilot, his sister said. He attended Orange Coast College for two years before moving to Sacramento, where he got his private pilot’s license while going to the state university there.

He joined the Air Force after graduation and earned his pilot’s wings in 1989, going on to fly C-141 Starlifter cargo planes out of Travis Air Force Base in the Bay Area. His performance landed him among the pilots selected to transport “generals and senators,” Haydon said.

Six months ago, he and his wife Kathleen moved to Germany for his new assignment: flying dignitaries throughout Europe from his post at the Ramstein air base, 75 miles southwest of Frankfurt. He had made several trips into the airport at Dubrovnik, his sister said, so he was familiar with the area where the crash occurred Sunday in a blinding storm.

“He had been there before, so we don’t know what might have happened,” Haydon said. “We don’t know much more than we hear on CNN. We want to find out what happened, what went wrong. It won’t change anything, but we want to know.”

The family was not sure whether Shafer was the mission’s lead pilot.

Haydon described her only sibling as “a golden boy, everyone’s pride and treasure” for his exploits in the Air Force, including flying the president and first lady on several occasions. (She did not know when those flights occurred.) He also flew humanitarian missions into Turkey, Iraq and Sarajevo.

“But he was never boastful; he was really quiet about it all,” she said. “He was the best of the best. All his life he wanted to fly. He had a passion for it, and when he got sent to Germany, it was a dream come true.”

The news Thursday that Shafer had been aboard the fateful flight spread quickly through his old neighborhood and Newport Harbor High. Bob Hailey, who taught Shafer biology and coached him in pole-vaulting for three years on the school track team, said that when he heard the news, he pulled out his old coaching records to reminisce about his onetime pupil.

“He was a real good kid, very caring and likable,” said Hailey, who still teaches at the school. “Flying humanitarian missions--that’s him. Always ready to do the job, to help others. He wasn’t the star of the team, but he was always there to help everyone else.”

Haydon said she and her brother come from a “a long line of Orange Countians.” Their father, Phillip Shafer, was raised in Newport Beach and lived there until three years ago, when he and his wife, Sara, moved to Rohnert Park in Sonoma County.

The pilot’s grandfather owned and operated Shafer Plumbing with his five sons in downtown Newport Beach for nearly 50 years. The family business continues, now run by a cousin in Tustin.