another crash.....hits close to home

montanapilot

Well-Known Member
Crash ends pilot's life and dreams
Kai Hetschel of Vancouver, whose Cessna went down near Olympia, aspired to fly commercial planes

Monday, November 01, 2004


Neither her mother nor her brother can remember what exactly made Kai Hetschel decide to become a pilot. But they have no doubt about one thing: Kai loved to fly.

"That's all she ever talked about," said Lonnie Hetschel, Kai's older brother. "She was almost always at the airfield. If you were to call her cell phone, you could tell how much she loved flying -- she had this novel way of doing her message on her voice mail so it sounded like she was doing air traffic control."

On Sunday afternoon, the Hetschel family was coping with the news that Kai, 20, died early Saturday when her Cessna 172 went down in a forest west of Olympia. The cause of the crash is under investigation.

Hetschel of Vancouver flew to Everett, Wash., on Friday to visit a cousin who is also a pilot, said Lonnie Hetschel, 23.

"She took him up flying, and he thought the conditions were bad. But she said she could handle it," said Lonnie, who had talked earlier with his cousin. "She had to work the next day, so she wanted to fly back late Friday evening."

Flying back from Everett on her way to Troutdale, Hetschel reported weather-related problems to air-traffic control. At 2 a.m. Saturday, the Thurston County sheriff's office got a call from the Federal Aviation Administration saying it lost communication and radar contact with the Cessna 172.

Hetschel's body was found Saturday morning in wreckage three miles southeast of Rock Candy Mountain in the Capitol Forest.

A memorial service will be at 4 p.m. Friday at Pearson Air Museum, 1115 E. Fifth St., Vancouver. Call 360-694-7026 for information.

Hetschel and her brother and two older sisters grew up on the Oregon Coast between Lincoln City and Depoe Bay. While Hetschel attended Taft High School, she and her mother went through a difficult time. Hetschel moved to Vancouver to be near one of her sisters and graduated from Mountain View High School.

"Our relationship was really restored," Elaine Hetschel, 63, said Sunday, remembering her daughter as a strong-willed woman who regularly called her.

Kai Hetschel had been taking classes at Mt. Hood Community College and working at an Olive Garden restaurant in Vancouver to earn money to become a commercial pilot, her mother said. "She wanted to go on with her flying."

On Sunday, Elaine Hetschel kept thinking about a few months ago when her daughter took her up in a plane. "We flew from Newport to Depoe Bay and back to Newport," Hetschel said. "I can't remember the date now, but we went out over the ocean. It was such a beautiful day and such a beautiful flight."



I just met and talked to this girl last week at one of my groundschools.
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I hate to speculate over a smoking hole, but it looks like pilot error to me.

She had to be at work the next morning, it was nasty weather, she didnt have an instrument rating and it was the middle of the night over mountainous terrain. not a very good combination.
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When i talked to her she said she had done an IFR groundschool and was almost done with the flight training part.


i've got groundschool in a couple hours so i'm sure i ll learn more.
 
It must be pretty hard for you to believe it happened, Monatana. You see the person and then when they pass you can't believe they are gone.

I remember a few months ago when I went to my old middle school for community service hours, I was talking to an administrator that I've know since 6th grade. 2 weeks later I heard that her whole family died in a car crash coming back from Orlando.

It is also sad that she didn't fulfill her dream. At least she had the pride of being a pilot before she died.
 
Damn that sucks. PNW pilot, have flown roughly that route as an equally green pilot many moons ago. Sorry to hear it
 
Is no one supervising these young pilots?
We had a similar accident a few years ago: high-school kid got his private, took off at night in iffy weather with two other young people, all dead.
Are flight schools really renting airplanes to these kids and just saying, "Have fun."? Why aren't they required to check in with their instructors or the flight school before each flight?
There's no way a low-time 20-year-old kid has even the faintest idea of the danger they're exposing themselves to on a night flight in bad weather. It's like giving a young child a loaded gun to play with.
Flight instructors need to sit down with the parents of these kids and educate them about what is and isn't safe.
 
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