They Took to the Air

One was an engineer who used to fuel planes and do other odd jobs at an airport in exchange for flying lessons. The other was a retired Air Force colonel whose life was a series of in-the-sky adventures that included parachuting and hang-gliding.

Their families said Tina Schroeder of Newport Beach and David Hughes of Cypress did not know each other. But their mutual love for the comfort of a plane’s cockpit and the freedom of the skies, along with freelance assignments for an aviation magazine, introduced them and led to their death in a fiery plane crash over the weekend.

As safety transportation officials on Monday continued their investigation into the Saturday crash of the twin-engine Paris Jet Morane Sauliner 760 in Irvine that also killed the third person on board, 48-year-old David Brooks Covell of Lompoc, family members of the two Orange County victims made funeral arrangements and, instead of talking of the crash, recalled happy memories.

Schroeder, 37, and Hughes, 56, apparently were both flying on the jet for separate stories for Private Pilot, an Irvine-based magazine for whom both were freelancing. Schroeder also was taking photos to go with her article, her family said.

Schroeder’s children recalled a loving mother who liked to run on the beach under a full moon, while Hughes’ wife remembered a considerate husband who took her to the theater even though the shows would put him to sleep. They were also free spirits who lived life to the fullest, their loved ones said.

“She loved to fly . . . and she was such a good pilot,” Schroeder’s son, 15-year-old Chiron Stewart, said at their oceanfront home facing the Balboa Pier. “Me and her used to mess around in the plane. We’d throw a paper plane outside the window, and she’d fly circles around it.”

Lynn Hughes said her husband of 36 years “liked anything that was there to master. He was someone who enjoyed every phase of his life. He went out and he met life and he didn’t wait for it to come to him.”

A retired U.S. Air Force colonel, Hughes learned to fly in 1976 for his own enjoyment, his wife said. Hughes would fly his Cessna 150, a plane he co-owned, to Northern California to see his son or to Montana and South Dakota to visit relatives.

Hughes, a Vietnam veteran, was awarded a Purple Heart after a land mine blew up his truck during one of his three tours of duty. Besides flying, he also loved parachuting, hang-gliding, auto racing and sailing.

Lynn Hughes said she did not want to dwell on the crash, preferring instead to remember her adventure-seeking husband and their last happy hours together. While he was active and always on the go, he also made sure to have time to take Lynn Hughes to the theater.

“But sometimes he would fall asleep in the first act and wake up in the second,” she said, laughing at the memories.

Schroeder’s children also remembered happier times Monday.

An engineer at Northrop Grumman Corp. who was also an amateur photographer in her spare time, Schroeder loved to take pictures of her children. Her daughter, Sian Stewart, 17, can still remember that day a couple of years ago when a dog chased Schroeder down a steep hill just as she was photographing Sian snowboarding.

“She was never too busy to spend time with us,” Sian said.

Schroeder bought a Cessna 140, a yellow plane with blue stripes she and her children nicknamed “the flying school bus” four years ago, and she flew it every chance she got, often with Chiron. “Because of her, I wanted to learn how to fly too,” he said.

Sian, however, said she was afraid of flying, so she rarely flew with her mom.

“I don’t feel planes are safe,” she said. “But my mom, she loved them. They were very safe to her.”

Those in the aviation community said the jet the Schroeder, Hughes and Covell were in is somewhat of a collector’s item, a rare aircraft that only a handful of people nationwide are certified to fly. Some also criticized it as being underpowered.

The National Transportation Safety Board said its investigation is likely to take five to six months and will include scrutiny of weather conditions, the pilots’ background and experience, aircraft maintenance records and who owned it, and routine autopsy and toxicological tests on those aboard.

The board’s regional director, Gary Mucho said the investigation is still trying to determine who was in control of the aircraft, which had been stored at Martin Aviation at John Wayne Airport.

“There are two sets of controls, and we don’t know who was at the control when it crashed,” Mucho said.

The inquiry also is focusing on the cockpit boarding ladder, which was not removed before takeoff. Shortly after takeoff, the pilot realized the mistake and radioed the control tower at John Wayne Airport for permission to return.

The steps were found at the scene, Mucho said.