12-Year-Old Who Wants to Fly to Alaska Gets New Sponsor

A 12-year-old boy is ready to pilot a plane to Alaska, thanks to an anonymous donor who replaced the funding lost when sponsors backed out after the fatal crash of 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff.

After reading about Andy Hedin’s plans in a newspaper, a woman from the San Diego area wrote him a $6,000 check, allowing him to reschedule his 1,300-mile trip for Aug. 5.

Andy’s news comes as Congress considers a bill that would forbid a licensed pilot from turning over an airplane’s controls to a child who is trying to set a record.

The pending legislation is in response to the April crash in Cheyenne, Wyo., that killed Jessica, her father and flight instructor as she attempted to set a cross-country flight record.

Andy said that law would not apply to him.

“We’re not trying to break any records or anything,” said the boy, who comes from the East Bay community of Sunol.

A hotel had offered to give Hedin a place to stay on the way to Ketchikan and others had promised to help pay the expense of renting the plane and fuel. A date for the trip was set for early July, but the offers were withdrawn after Jessica’s death.

Undaunted, Andy was slowly raising money by washing and waxing airplanes at the Livermore Municipal Airport for $25 a plane.

Andy’s new sponsor shares his love for flying.

“She was a pilot and she travels a lot to Ketchikan,” he said.

Accompanied by a flight instructor, Andy will fly a rented single-engine Cessna from Livermore to Alaska. The trip up should take three or four days, flying six hours a day.

Comparisons between Andy and Jessica--both from Northern California--were unavoidable. Even though both were younger than age 17, the minimum age required for a pilot’s license, there are differences.

Andy has 150 hours of flight time, while Jessica had 35 hours. Andy is 6 feet tall, which means he does not require the pedal extensions Dubroff needed to fly her plane.