Michael Ekholm of Monroe, who died in a plane crash in Eastern Washington on Saturday, was a pleasant, helpful man with a scientific mind, family members said Sunday.
The father of two sons, who worked as chief engineer for the Sterling Elevator Company in Bellevue, enjoyed flying, amateur radio, electronics and astronomy.
“He loved the sciences,” said his brother-in-law, Garry Wood.
Ekholm, 49, and two other men died when the experimental aircraft they were in crashed during an attempted landing at Seven Bays Airport west of Spokane.
The Lincoln County sheriff’s office identified the other victims as Charles W. McCanna, 74, and Brian G. Bollaert, 56, both of Federal Way, according to the Associated Press.
The single-engine homemade aircraft was registered to McCanna. It went down Saturday afternoon about 30 miles north of Davenport in Lincoln County, said Mike O’Connor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. Staff from the agency’s Spokane office were investigating, he said.
“An eyewitness said they saw the plane in a pretty deep banking turn” before crashing, said Kelly Watkins, chief criminal deputy for the Lincoln County sheriff’s office.
The witnesses “heard the engine rev up and the pilot try to pull out of it,” Watkins said.
The plane’s propeller hit the side of a gully, flipping the plane as the pilot tried to land the aircraft, witnesses said. The nose of the plane smashed into the ground about three-quarters of a mile from the landing strip, Watkins said.
Wood said the family doesn’t know who was flying the plane.
Ekholm was a cautious flier and meticulous about following the rules of the air, Wood said.
“By the book, and beyond. Very, very detailed,” his brother-in-law said. “He never flew over the mountains, just because they can be a little tricky. Our gut feeling is he was not flying the plane” on Saturday.
Ekholm mostly flew training flights on small planes out of the Auburn airport, did not have his own plane and did not fly experimental aircraft, according to Wood.
“After our boys, Mike’s greatest love was flying,” his wife, Barbara, wrote in an e-mail. “He began flying as a teenager and took a 20-year break to watch his sons grow up. With his sons grown he recently resumed flying again with his good buddy Chuck McCanna.”
Ekholm also loved to teach, family members said. He led training classes at the Dover Elevator Company in Tennessee and again in his current job, Wood said.
“He always said his dream job was to be a high school physics teacher,” his wife wrote. “Mike loved to share his love of the sciences with those around him, especially his sons.”
Ekholm’s oldest son, Jared, graduated from the University of Washington as a physics major and is now serving in the Air Force at Edwards Air Force base in California. His other son, Jason, is in his junior year in an engineering program at the UW.
“Mike was very proud of them,” Barbara Ekholm wrote.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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