The pilot, 73, had more than 18,000 hours and an ATP certificate. He and his wife, an instrument-rated private pilot with over 800 hours, kept several airplanes, all vintage or Experimental, on their private strip in northeastern Pennsylvania. One of these was a taxicab-yellow 1944 Cessna T-50 “Bamboo Bomber,” a five-seat steel-tube-and-fabric taildragger with two 275 hp Jacobs radials. (A video of the pilot and his lovingly maintained airplane can be seen on YouTube here.)
On Labor Day weekend, 2013, the pilot and his wife were returning home from a fly-in at Antique Airfield in Blakesburg, Iowa. Over Sandusky, Ohio, the pilot contacted Flight Service to ask whether there was a TFR at Cleveland’s Burke Lakefront Airport. There was no TFR, but the briefer provided an ominous weather report.
