Devyn Reiley, daughter of Super Bowl winner Bruce Collie, is killed along with the 20-year-old copilot when her World War II T-6 Texan crashes into a lake at the Oshkosh air show: two other people are killed in a separate helicopter crash
The 30-year-old pilot daughter of Super Bowl winner Bruce Collie was killed along with her copilot when her World War II T-6 Texan crashed into a lake at the Oshkosh Air Show β while two others died in a separate helicopter crash on the same day. day.
The first crash happened around 9 a.m. Saturday, when Devyn Reiley of Guadalupe, Texas β the daughter of two-time Super Bowl champion Bruce Collie β crashed her vintage plane with 20-year-old Zach Colliemoreno on board.
Eyewitnesses said the plane began to descend before crashing into Lake Winnebago.
The second crash occurred shortly after noon at an airfield near the air show grounds.
A helicopter piloted by Alabama-based instructor and engineer Mark Peterson, 69, was hit from below by a gyrocopter and caught fire.
Both Peterson and his passenger Thomas Volz, 72, of Amelia, Ohio, were killed.
Devyn Reiley of Guadalupe, Texas, was killed Saturday when her World War II plane crashed into a lake in Wisconsin
Reiley is pictured with the T-6 Texan, which crashed Saturday
Reiley is seen with her father Bruce Collie, a two-time Super Bowl winner
Collie is seen in action in November 1989 with the San Francisco 49ers
Volz, an Air Force veteran and cancer survivor, attended the air show with his grandson, his wife of 52 years, Patty, told Fox 19.
“They tell me they never knew what happened,” Patty said. “It hit and burst into flames and it went straight down.”
Their grandson called her to say he had been killed.
“He said, ‘I hate to tell you this, Grammy, but Babi passed away’ β that’s what they called him,” she said.
βI just yelled and said, ‘No, he’s not! No he isn’t!”
She said that Peterson was a very experienced helicopter pilot, who was trusted by everyone.
βIt was a horrible accident. They were hit from below by a gyrocopter when they landed,” she said.
The helicopter carrying Mark Peterson and Thomas Volz was hit by a gyrocopter on Saturday and caught fire
Thomas Volz, an Ohio aviation enthusiast, was killed Saturday when a helicopter he was riding crashed
Volz had built his own helicopter (pictured), but did not fly it in Wisconsin
Alabama-based instructor and engineer Mark Peterson, 69, was hit from below by a gyrocopter and his helicopter caught fire
AirVenture, one of the country’s largest aviation events, attracts 10,000 aircraft and more than 600,000 visitors.
Reiley and her husband Hunter, who was also with EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, ran a flight training school in Texas.
The couple met at the aviation meeting and got married there three years ago.
They flew away from their wedding in a Vultee B-13 warbird and their home in Texas was decorated with airplanes.
‘We got married during ‘NOshkosh’ so we can have it every year at Oshkosh! could celebrate,β she wrote on July 26 in honor of their anniversary.
“To living and chasing our dreams together for many more years with my best friend by my side.”
Reiley also trained as a commercial air pilot, San Antonio Express News reported, and was admitted to the Air Force Reserves, for the purpose of flying tankers.
The eldest of 13 children of former San Francisco 49ers star Bruce Collie and his wife Holly, became a certified private pilot in 2017.
Bruce Collie retired from the NFL and opened a pizzeria and brewery in Texas with his wife, with whom he has 13 children
Rescue workers are pictured at the lake in Wisconsin where Reiley crashed Saturday
Reiley co-founded the Texas Warbird Museum with her husband and his family to preserve retired World War II military aircraft known as warbirds and to share aviation stories from the Rio Grande Valley.
She had a “passion for representing women aviator history by flying these historic aircraft,” the post said.
She taught at the Texas Aviation Academy in New Braunfels from 2018 until its closure earlier this year.
Reiley was flying a T-6 Texan plane when it crashed into the lake.
Brayden Hiebing was fishing on the lake with his grandfather and told NBC26 he watched the plane roll down.
“At first I thought they were playing a trick,” Hiebing said.
“I heard the plane coming out of the sky, and it started spinning and I told him, and all of a sudden it made a big splash.”
Hunter Reiley said his wife was in awe of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, or WASP β a civilian women’s pilot association formed during World War II.
βAll you wanted was to make the wasp proud. You earned your ‘Fifi’ wings,” he wrote on Facebook.
Air show spokesman Dick Knapinski said both crashes are under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
“Singular accidents like this are very rare,” he said Fox 59.
“Two fatal accidents on the same day are extremely rare.”