7-Year-Old Pilot Was Attempting World Record When Plane Crashed, Killing 3 in Failed ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• On April 11, 1996, 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff died in a Cessna plane crash while trying to become the youngest person to fly across the United States.

• The crash, which also killed his father and instructor pilot, also raised questions about his parents’ decision and whether children should fly planes.

• “They were a great father and daughter going on the ride of their lives,” Dave Dubroff tells PEOPLE, “and unfortunately there was an accident.”

Dave Dubroff still remembers the moment on April 11, 1996, when he learned that his 7-year-old half-sister Jessica Dubroff and her 57-year-old father Lloyd had died in a plane crash that also claimed the lives of pilot and flight instructor Joe Reid.

“I was at work and heard on the radio that the plane had crashed. I ran to the pay phone and called the Cheyenne Police Department, who told me to call the sheriff’s department to find out,” Dave, 66, of Concord, Calif., tells PEOPLE.

“I was in denial and thought, ‘I’m sure everyone is alive,'” he says. “Then they told me, ‘No, they all died during the flight.'”

At the time, Jessica was trying to become the youngest person to pilot an airplane across the United States; It was a success that attracted national media attention; but the crash raised questions about their parents’ decision and whether children should fly planes.

Entrepreneur Lloyd Dubroff moved to the Bay Area in 1968 with his wife, Lane, and their two children, including Dave.

Although Dave said his father was often busy with work, he was still an attentive father. “He wasn’t home very often,” she says. “But when he was there, they were all there.”

Lloyd, who was divorced in 1984, met Lisa Blair Hathaway through a mutual friend. Although they never married, they lived together for six years and share three childrenIncluding Jessica, who was born in 1988.

As reported in PEOPLE’s 1996 cover story about the accident, Jessica had an unconventional childhood. Raised by her New Age mother Hathaway, a self-described spiritual healer, Jessica was homeschooled and grew up without toys or children’s books.

His mother’s philosophy? Children need to create their own lifestyle.

“Anyway [the kids] “He supported them even though they wanted to,” said Patty Sarabia, a neighbor. New York Times In 1996. “He believed they could do anything.”

After his relationship with Hathaway ended (Hathaway later said she and Lloyd disagreed over his unorthodox views on raising children), Lloyd married Melinda Anne Hurst in 1991.

Still, Lloyd and Hathaway remained close, and at one point Hathaway and her two children, Jessica and her brother Joshua, lived with Lloyd’s new family for at least two months. Lloyd and Hathaway’s third child, Jasmine, would later be born in 1992.

talk with Times Kelly McKnight, who owns a farm where Jessica learned to ride in 1996, said her interest in aviation dates back to her sixth birthday, when her parents would let her ride on a plane and even let the pilot take the controls.

“He was a great kid, and of course he loved flying. That was his main hobby,” Dave tells PEOPLE.

Dave says his father was very supportive of Jessica’s interest in flying. “That’s the kind of father he was,” he says. “Whatever his children were interested in, he wanted to be involved in this activity with them.”

Hathaway quickly formed a bond with her youngest student, Jessica, when she approached 52-year-old pilot Joe Reid and told him his children wanted to learn to fly.

And as mentioned 1997 NTSB report In an ABC News interview with Jessica and her father before the accident, when asked where the idea of ​​a cross-country flight came from, the girl said it came from her father.

“That’s what I did in the beginning,” Lloyd replied. He said that after getting his mother’s approval, he told Jessica she might “think about it a little bit,” but Jessica responded, “No, it’s something I want to do.” “

At this point, Jessica had logged 33 hours of flight time, according to the NTSB report. He did not have an FAA medical or pilot certificate, so officials described him as a “pilot trainee” throughout the report.

The trio decided to set out from Half Moon Bay on April 10 and arrive in Falmouth, Massachusetts, where Jessica was born, on April 12.

“I thought it was great,” Dave tells PEOPLE of his initial reaction to the trip. “I was happy for them to experience this. He would be the youngest pilot to fly across the country and back.”

The pilot’s son, Chris Reid, tells PEOPLE he didn’t feel like the adventure seemed strange to his father at the time. He says he believes his father, a stockbroker who took up flying after military service in Vietnam, saw the adventure as a way to shine a light on something he loved: aviation.

“I think Lloyd said: ‘Yeah, let’s go. Can I be a part of this?’ “Chris suggests. “My dad said: ‘Yeah, great. I have someone paying me to fly my plane. I have a babysitter for the kid who brought aviation to media attention.’ I know he said, ‘Hey, I’m here’ for Jessica, too. ‘I’m doing this and let’s have fun.’ “

The last time Dave saw his half-sister was shortly before the trip, when he took a short flight with her behind the controls. “I was surprised,” he recalls.[at] “How commanding he was.”

“There was a lot of media,” recalls Chris, who was there when the Cessna made its maiden voyage from Half Moon Bay on April 10.

“I was able to say goodbye to my dad, ‘Hey, calm down.’ “He left and that was it,” he adds.

Later that day, the Cessna arrived in Cheyenne, where the trio stayed for the night.

According to the NTSB report, Lloyd called Jessica’s mother at the end of the first day of the flight and told her that Jessica had slept for part of the trip and that Joe had helped her during one of the landings.

The next morning, April 11, the three headed to Cheyenne Airport to continue the flight, even though the weather forecast was full of wind, sleet, and storms.

At 8:24 a.m. local time, about four minutes after takeoff, the Cessna crashed, killing all three people on board.

Chris was flipping through channels to get the latest on the flight when he heard the news, then waited by the phone for the authorities to call.

His father’s funeral was held four days later in Half Moon Bay. When it was over, Chris and his brother Matthew headed to Pescadero to carry the casket at Jessica’s funeral that same day.

“They put his coffin on a horse and took it to the cemetery,” Dave recalls. “This was a really difficult service. There were a few people playing guitar and singing.”

“This must have been too much for me,” he adds. “So I walked away before I took him down to the grave.”

The tragedy caught the attention of Jessica’s parents.

“They were getting positive press before the flight,” Dave says. But then, instead of being portrayed as a “great dad” who helped his daughter achieve her dreams, he recalls being called a stage dad and “a bunch of things that weren’t right.”

Dave’s worst memory of the media response was coming across a magazine at a newsstand while meeting his uncle (Lloyd’s brother) and grandfather at San Francisco International Airport.

“I will never forget the cover Time A picture of Jessica and ‘Who Killed Jessica?’ it said. ” he recalls. “I tried to get between my grandfather, my uncle and the newsstand so they wouldn’t see this. “I don’t think I was successful.”

Nearly a year after their deaths, the NTSB released its official report on the crash.

Authorities stated that Reid was at the controls of the plane at the time of the crash. The probable cause of the accident was the decision to take off in deteriorating weather conditions; officials stated that the plane was overweight and that the density altitude was higher than Reid was accustomed to.

“Contributing to the pilot in command’s decision to take off was a desire to adhere to an overly ambitious itinerary, due in part to media commitments,” the report stated.

Chris says the NTSB findings were no surprise to his family. “He made a bad decision,” she says of her father. “He took the risk of going up and tried to go out and punch and ride out the storm, but it didn’t work… There’s nothing to deny.”

Dave says it took him a while to get over losing Lloyd and Jessica.

“Anniversaries were really hard for the first 20 years or so,” Dave shares. “I was very touched.”

Then, about a decade ago, he found peace by focusing on how grateful he was for the time they were able to spend together.

“They were a wonderful father and daughter who were on the journey of their lives,” he says, adding: “Unfortunately, there was an accident.”

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Dave says he has no doubt that Jessica will grow up to be a “wonderful woman” and that the memories of her father’s love will always be one he will hold close.

“My father was a very loving, warm, emotional man, and I realized how lucky I was to have him for 36 years,” she says. “So now there are a lot of good memories on anniversaries.”

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