Just before Capt. Jonathan Campos boarded the American Eagle flight he would pilot to Washington D.C., he called his aunt: He was looking forward to a Caribbean cruise with extended family they’d been planning for a year.
Next to him in the cockpit was Sam Lilley, the flight’s 28-year-old first officer, who was also looking to the future. He was engaged to be married in the fall, Lilley’s father, Tim, said in a Facebook post.
The pilots took off from Witchita with two flight attendants and 60 passengers – ice skaters, coaches and families returning from a skating competition and development camp, union workers and friends on a hunting trip and a student returning to college.