Mary Gutierrez remembers her father as the intelligent, hardworking, kind man she knew him to be.
As the anniversary of 77-year-old Pablino Gutierrez’s death nears, she said she has begun to reflect on the type of life he lived before he was killed in a plane crash at DeFuniak Springs Municipal Airport on May 9, 2012.
The crash is still under investigation.
“He could have built anything and I would have gotten into that plane myself,” Mary Gutierrez said. “It was just his time, I guess. But people should know what a wonderful person he was.”
Pablino Gutierrez of Fort Walton Beach was killed in his single-engine Hummel Bird experimental aircraft he built in 2010.
Mary Gutierrez said her father had a passion for flying since he was a child, a strange love for the grandson of an Army man and the brother of a Navy man. She said he was unable to pass his eye exam, so his dream of being an Air Force pilot turned into a career as a weapons mechanic.
When he retired, he had earned three Distinguished Flying Crosses and 21 Air Medals.
On the day he died, Gutierrez was testing the plane to fly in an air show a few weeks later. His daughter said he died doing what he loved most.
“He embraced flying from an early age and he instilled that passion in his family,” Gutierrez said. “The day of his accident, I got a call from my sister saying he’d been in an accident … Then she told me ‘he’s gone.’
“It was so unexpected. I mean, we had plans. It was like running into a brick wall going 60 mph. It knocks the wind out of you.”
Almost a year later, Mary Gutierrez and her family are still waiting for the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report.
According to the preliminary report, the plane took off and reached an altitude of about 300 feet when it nose-dived into the ground. Gutierrez was pronounced dead at the scene.
Mary Gutierrez said an autopsy revealed there was no medical emergency.
“It was not him physically, so it had to be something with the airplane,” she said. “I keep thinking, ‘Just give us the report, let us know what happened so we can assimilate that and move forward.’ ”
