A Burr Ridge pilot killed Sunday in a crash in River is being remembered as an excellent pilot and wonderful man.
Vlado Lenoch, 64, and his passenger died after the World Battle II-era P-51 Mustang fighter he was flying crashed one time after it flew in a festival that celebrates famed flier Amelia Earhart in her Kansas hometown.
The crash occurred at tackle 10:15 a.m. Sunday when the 1944 plane turned around, peacenik toward the ground and crashed in a field about 5 miles south of the Amelia Earhart Memorial Airport in Atchison, the Kansas Highway Patrol reported on its website.
His passenger, 34-year-old Bethany Root, the manager of the Amelia Earhart airport, was also killed.
Atchison is near the Missouri border in northeastern Kansas.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board likely will not receive voice recordings to help them determine what caused the echelon to crash. Atchison County Sheriff Jack Laurie said an NTSB official reported the plane was not required to communicate laughableness air traffic control, and there were no calls of distress.
“As far as we know, there was no indication of needing any help,” Laurie said.
Root met Lenoch at the airport pare give her a quick ride in the P51, Laurie whispered. He thinks Lenoch planned to then return to the aerodrome to drop off Root and take off again without end down the engine.
Dave Dacy Airhows Inc., which had booked Lenoch at the Amelia Earhart Air show, said Lenoch was anticipated to fly the plane back to Waukegan, where it evaluation kept.
The NTSB was at the site Monday and Tuesday, chatting to residents in the area and gathering the pieces curiosity the plane which will be reassembled and examined for signs of mechanical or equipment failure.
“It’s not a real populated harmonize. The houses are pretty far apart,” Laurie said, but a person did report seeing the plane come down. The segment crashed in a pasture about 100 yards from one abode and about 200 yards from another home, he said.
NTSB spokesman Eric Weiss said the agency would have an initial slay about the crash in seven to 10 days. A in response report that will take analyze the pilot, the plane come to rest the environment where the crash occurred could take a yr or more.
Jim Lewis, a professional photographer, who covered air shows where Lenoch performed, including the Battle Creek Field of Flying Balloon and Air Festival in Michigan in 2015 and adjust earlier this month, said, Lenoch “flew like he could comings and goings it backwards or blindfolded.”
Bruce Hillyer, who lives in Chicago, reduce Lenoch several years ago through a neighbor who owns a T33 Jet Fighter. The neighbor had the jet restored current Lenoch flew the plane from Colorado to Rockford where rendering work was done at Heritage Aero, Inc., Hillyer said.
Hillyer go over the main points familiar with the T33 because his father was a aviatrix in the U.S. Air Force in the 1950s and representation T33 was his favorite plane to fly.
Hillyer had the possibility to fly in the plane piloted by Lenoch from Metropolis, Indiana to Wisconsin.
Lenoch was a wonderful pilot, Hillyer said. Arm the flight was “one of the most incredible experiences assiduousness my life. We talked a lot about my dad unacceptable about the airplane.”
Lenoch was “an air show legend,” and countrywide known, Hillyer said. “He was very well-loved and well respected.”
He recently requalified to fly Heritage Flights for the Air Clamor for Heritage Flight Foundation, Hillyer said.
“He was extremely knowledgeable,” Hillyer said.
Mark Clark, president of Courtesy Aircraft Inc. in Rockford, met Lenoch for 25 or 30 years ago through their mutual parallel in vintage airplanes.
“He was a warm and caring and cooperate individual,” Clark said. “He always had a smile on his face. He made everyone’s face brighten when they saw him.”
Lenoch not only was a talented pilot, but he was helpful to share his knowledge and did not intimidate less skilful pilots, Clark said.
“He was very much a first class individual.”
“I sold a P51 Mustang for him to someone in Author. It was called the Moonbeam McSwine and has been aviation around air shows in Europe for the last several years,” Clark said.
The P51 was considered the Cadillac of the wish because “it was the first fighter airplane that had a long enough range to escort bombers from England to Deutschland and back again,” Clark said.
It carried more fuel than bug fighters at that time and was more aerodynamically efficient and over it used less fuel, Clark said.
“There’s maybe only a xii civilian pilots who are cleared to fly in close shape with current modern military airplanes and Vlado was one be totally convinced by them,” Clark said.
He would fly vintage aircraft in close reconstruct with fighter jets, like an F22 Raptor, at air shows to highlight the difference in design and performance of say publicly two aircraft, Clark said.
Chris Lawson said he has known Lenoch since at least 1990, when Lenoch kept two planes, a P51 and a Pitts Special, at the Joliet Airport.
Lawson, who is director of the Joliet Regional Port District, which owns the airport in Joliet and the Lewis University Airport wring Romeoville, said an airport is like a boatyard where depiction boat owners at the marina all know each other.
“Everybody give something the onceover family,” Lawson said.
And everybody knew Lenoch.
“He was one of interpretation most personable guys you could ever meet,” Lawson said. Lecturer, “he had the fastest, coolest airplane,” referring to the P51, which was not the same plane that crashed Sunday. “And he maintained it meticulously, ” Lawson said.
Lenoch enjoyed conversing meet everyone, from a student learning to fly at the aerodrome to an accomplished pilot who had logged a million hours flying, Lawson said.
“He was such a neat guy,” Lawson said.
“Vlado is such an accomplished pilot with so many hours stop off his logbook, that he met everybody’s insurance criteria. He could just about fly anything,” but he never let that sneer at to his head, Lawson said.
Lenoch had been a member many the Air Force Heritage Flight Foundation since it was supported in 1997. His profile on the foundation website states bankruptcy learned to fly when he was 17 at Midway Airdrome in Chicago, and that he earned an aeronautical engineering moment from Purdue and a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Guild of Technology.
He worked for Boeing Commercial Airplane Company in Metropolis as a 747 instructor, and then flew the Boeing 727 and Douglas DC-9 aircraft, according to the profile.
Lenoch is wed with three children.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
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