The Hamptons real estate agent who died with her daughter when their plane crashed in rural Virginia was adopted at age 40 by a Trump donor couple who thought she reminded them of a daughter they had in 1994 at age 19. age lost in a diving accident.
Azarian was the adopted daughter of John and Barbara Rumpel, who owned the crashed Cessna plane. They are notable donors to GOP causes, giving $250,000 to the Trump Victory PAC in 2020.
The plane was flying to East Hampton on Sunday with Azarian, her two-year-old daughter, Aria, their nanny and the pilot, when it mysteriously U-turned, triggering the dispatch of military jets, and crashed.
The nanny was according to Evadnie Smith The sunand John Rumpel identified Jeff Hefner as the pilot in a interview with the Washington Post.
Rumpel told the Post how he adopted Azarian. He also shared how she had tried so hard to have a child of her own and how he watched her go through years of in vitro fertilization to conceive Aria.
John Rumpel, owner of the plane and Azarian’s adoptive father, identified Jeff Hefner (pictured) as the pilot in an interview with The Washington Post
Adina Azarian (left), her two-year-old daughter (center) and the child’s nanny Evadnie Smith (right) were killed Sunday when a plane they were on crashed in rural Virginia
John Rumpel (left) owned the Cessna plane that crashed and adopted Azarian with his wife Barbara (right) when she was 40. The two are pictured at an NRA Foundation dinner in 2017
Adina Azarian, 49, was adopted at age 40 by John and Barbara Rumpel because she reminded them of their first child Victoria, who died in a scuba diving accident in 1994 at age 19. Azarian is depicted with her daughter
Smith was a live-in nanny at Azarian’s home in East Hampton, New York, according to the Sun. Originally from Jamaica, Azarian’s friends told the outlet that she was a “beautiful soul of a woman” who was incredibly close to the mother and daughter.
Her friends described The New York Post how Azarian went through miscarriages and failed IVF rounds before finally giving birth to Aria.
“It would be fitting that they are together,” Azarian’s childhood friend Tara Brivic-Looper told the outlet. “I don’t think they were ever not together, so whenever Adina went anywhere, Aria was always with her.”
“She went through everything as a single woman to have a baby, and I can’t say since Aria was born, I don’t think I’ve seen her twice without her,” said Brivic-Looper, who attended Dwight School went in Manhattan with Azarian.
“It was just the two of them every day. That was what she always wanted,” says Brivic-Looper.
Azarian discussed her difficulties having a child in a 2020 Facebook post shortly after Aria’s birth.
“Three years ago I decided I wanted to choose to be a mother,” Azarian wrote.
“As my biological clock ticked, I landed on a long journey of fertility treatments, IUI, IVF, multiple miscarriages, failed embryo transfers and more.
“I went in and drew on my own inner strength to keep going. It was hard, but I knew deep down that a miracle would happen if I didn’t give up.”
“I offer my story as an inspiration to any woman going through the same struggle with infertility or simply making the decision to start your own family on our own terms,” she wrote.
“Sometimes life takes you places where you didn’t imagine it at first, but where there is faith, where there is courage, where there is God, there is also hope.”
Adina’s adoptive parents are prominent GOP donors, John and Barbara Rumpel, shown with Trump in March 2020. They are pictured with Donald Trump in March 2020
John and Barbara Rumpel pictured in an NRA Women’s Leadership Forum article
Azarian was described by colleagues as an “iconic” real estate agent who worked out of the Hamptons and New York City
The plane was carrying Adina Azarian, her two-year-old daughter, their nanny and the pilot, who has not yet been named. It took off from Elizabethton Airport in Tennessee at 1:13 p.m. and was scheduled to land at MacArthur Airport in Islip, Long Island. Instead, it flew north, turned around, and then crashed into Virginia
Hefner’s previous employer, the head of a law firm where Hefner worked as a flight captain, told CNN the pilot is survived by his wife and three children.
He was described as “a very talented and skilled aviator, having flown as a captain with Southwest Airlines for 25 years and had more than 25,000 flight hours,” attorney Dan Newlin told CNN in a statement.
John Rumpel told the Washington Post that a love of small planes was only meant to bring the family together.
He also said he never had any problems with the Cessna Citation plane he flew from his home in Florida to a second home in the North Carolina mountains last month.
Rumpel said police had told him the cabin may have run out of pressure, causing those present, including the pilot, to lose consciousness.
The plane took off from Elizabethton Airport in Tennessee at 1:13 p.m. and was scheduled to land at MacArthur Airport in Islip, Long Island.
The plane approached MacArthur instead, but then turned around at 2:45 p.m. and flew south again to alert D.C. officials.
No one on board answered calls from the ground, prompting two F-16 fighter jets from Joint Base Andrews to rush to his side to investigate — a sonic boom was heard over parts of DC and Virginia.
Once airborne, the F-16 pilots reported seeing the Cessna pilot lower into the cockpit. Within moments, the Cessna crashed, falling about 28,000 feet per minute in St Mary’s Wilderness, about 175 miles southwest of Washington DC.
While the tragedy is still being investigated, aviation experts tell DailyMail.com it was likely due to a cabin pressurization failure that caused the pilot — and everyone else — to pass out from a lack of oxygen.
As the plane approached Long Island, instead of landing, it turned back south.
Search and rescue teams leave the command post in St. Mary’s Wilderness en route to the Blue Ridge Parkway to search for the crash site of a Cessna Citation
Authorities secure the entrance to Mine Bank Trail, an access point to the rescue operation along the Blue Ridge Parkway where the plane crashed on Sunday
Kyle Bailey, a former FAA Safety Team representative, told DailyMail.com that it was likely the result of the pilot programming his route.
“What seems to have happened when the plane flew into Islip was very high.
“They could very well be incapacitated for work [by then]. The pilot has waypoints in the program, it is comparable to a GPS system. So the autopilot would have flown it to Islip, and the next point could very well be the airfield they took off from.
“It could have been toward DC or somewhere south. It seems that it was applied in that direction. In that scenario, the plane probably flew itself.’
It is very likely that the cabin pressure is lost or that the pilot has become incapacitated. He could have had a heart attack or something like that, but judging by the fact that no emergency calls have been made by any of the passengers we know, I’m leaning more towards loss of cabin pressure.
“It usually happens on older planes,” Kyle Bailey, a former FAA Safety Team representative, told DailyMail.com.
The Cessna involved was a 1990 Cessna Citation V 560. It belonged to John and Barbara Rumpel’s company.
“It wouldn’t have the latest and greatest technology, the planes really evolved around the year 2000, that’s when the technology got really crazy,” Bailey said.
Such aircraft have many pressure relief valves that could be faulty. It could have come on suddenly or gradually, she said.