A crushed dream
7-year-old killed trying to break flying record
April 11, 1996
Web posted at: 10:30 p.m. EDTCHEYENNE, Wyoming (CNN) -- "Yeah, I want to break a record ... I just know I'm going to break it," 7-year-old Jessica Dubroff said Thursday morning, eager to fulfill her quest to become the youngest person to fly across America. (45K AIFF sound or 45K WAV sound)
Hours later, that dream ended tragically.
Jessica was killed along with her father, Lloyd Dubroff, and flight instructor Joe Reid when their plane nose-dived into a driveway shortly after taking off in stormy weather.
The single-engine plane, a four-seat Cessna, crashed in a residential area about a mile from Cheyenne Airport as the three began the second leg of their cross-country journey. The plane missed a house by some 25 feet.
"The nose of the plane directly impacted the street ... It was going straight down into the ground. It wasn't attempting to land," said Ron Nimmo, an eyewitness.
"It didn't erupt in flames," Nimmo said. "Of course there was very little of it left when it hit the ground, but there were no flames at all."
The plane, which crashed in driving rain, lay near the driveway of a home, its wings and tail collapsed and wreckage strewn across a wide area.
Just hours after the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration said it would review the rules that govern when a pilot can allow an unlicensed passenger to fly a plane.
FAA administrator David Hinson said at a news conference Thursday that under current regulations, the licensed pilot aboard the plane, Reid, was ultimately responsible for the safety of all aboard.
Youngsters have to be at least 16 to fly solo. But children of any age can fly alongside licensed pilots, who may let them operate the controls at their discretion.
But FAA spokesperson Mitch Barker emphasized: "We are never going to tolerate a situation where an unlicensed person is flying that plane."
Barker said the National Transportation Safety Board was launching an investigation into the crash.
Police Chief John Powell, one of the first to arrive on the crash scene, said the bodies were still strapped into the Cessna when he arrived, but he couldn't tell who had been operating the plane.
Too small to reach controls
Wearing a baseball cap that said "Women fly," Jessica -- a resident of Pescadero, California -- was apparently at the controls on Wednesday when the plane took off from the Half Moon Bay airport near San Francisco on the first leg of her journey.
At 4 feet, 2 inches, she needed extenders for her feet to reach the plane's rudder pedals. She sat on a cushion to see over the instrument panel.
Although her father and flight instructor were to accompany her for the eight-day, 6,900-mile (11,100-kilometer) flight across the United States and back, Jessica planned to do all the flying.
Before Jessica flew this morning, a reporter asked her what she thought about when flying. "I don't know ... crashing," the child said, glancing at her plane.
Did she worry about that, the reporter wanted to know.
"No ... " Jessica replied.
According to the plans, Reid wasn't supposed to touch the controls except in an emergency. Her father was to sit in the back seat of the Cessna 177B.
'Please, get some altitude!'
To discourage unsafe flights, the "Guinness Book of Records" stopped recognizing the "youngest pilot" category some years ago. However, flights by youngsters have continued. Last year, 8-year-old Killian Moss of Phoenix flew from San Diego to Norfolk, Virginia.
Tom Johnson, an experienced pilot, said he saw the plane shortly after takeoff, and it appeared the pilot was trying to return to the airport in the face of the rain and snow.
"It stalled over my building, winged over and went straight into the ground like a dart," he said.
Johnson, whose office is halfway between the airport and the crash site, said the airplane never got any higher than 400 feet.
"I kept thinking, 'Please! Please, get some altitude!'" he said. "It just went right into the ground. I knew no one survived. It would have been impossible."
Hooked on flying
Jessica became hooked on flying after her parents took her on an airplane ride for her sixth birthday. She had taken four months of lessons and had logged about 35 flight hours before embarking on her attempt at record-breaking. (1.9M QuickTime movie)
She was so confident she even spoke to her mother, Lisa Blair Hathaway, by telephone as she revved the engine on the runway.
Hathaway said she heard no word of problems as the three began to take off and ended the communication.
"I beg people to let children fly if they want to fly," Hathaway said before flying from Boston to Wyoming to claim her daughter's body. She had flown ahead to Massachusetts to await the arrival of Jessica and her ex-husband. (153K AIFF sound or 153K WAV sound)
On Tuesday, Lloyd Dubroff said he was inspired by another young girl's cross-country flight several years ago, and when Jessica expressed an interest in flying, he asked her if she would like to try such a flight. She agreed.
"I'm the culprit," Dubroff said.
"If she can do this, she can do anything. And it will expand her horizons. She's going to see the country slide by under her wing at 150 knots ... and she's going to be able to say, 'I did that,'" Dubroff said. (187K AIFF sound or 187K WAV sound)
Dubroff said he didn't think anybody would be interested in their cross-country journey. "This started as a father-daughter adventure. It's gotten wonderfully out of hand."
An unconventional upbringing
Jessica, her brother, Joshua, and sister, Jasmine, lived with Hathaway. Her father lived in nearby San Mateo with his current wife.
Jessica's upbringing in Pescadero, a coastal town about 40 miles south of San Francisco, was very different from most other American children.
Jessica and her brother were home schooled and she took horseback riding lessons in exchange for caring for the animals.
There was no TV in Hathaway's home and the children's toys were hammers, screwdrivers and saws that they used to build their own furniture.
In addition to flying, Jessica played the guitar, trumpet and piano and read such books as the biography of Harriet Tubman and Hillary Rodham Clinton's "It Takes A Village."
At the Three-Zero Cafe at Half Moon Bay Airport, where Jessica took her lessons, owner Mark Smith said he was stunned when he heard the news early Thursday.
"Jessica was 7 years old going on 25; had the world by the tails; sweet, smart, articulate; really aware. She was very excited about what was going on."
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
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