TennVolTony
Thief of Thongs
- Joined
- Sep 17, 1999
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5 years ago today the golf world lost a very special person....Payne Stewart. I had the pleasure of meeting him during my duties as a PGA Marshall. Below is something that was printed in the Orlando paper today.....The 5th anniversary of his death......
I remember the tears I shed that day and the days that followed not only for Payne but for his wife Tracy and his 2 children and for all of us who were touched by Payne.......
Here is the article. It's long.....it's sad...... and very heartbreaking...
Later in their lives, wedding anniversaries would be marked with tears. Birthdays marked with prayer. Holidays marked with empty seats.
But long before the sadness, before the counseling and before the funeral services ...
Before a mother's arms swallowed a young child that afternoon, before the pastor knelt beside the new widow and closed his eyes ...
Before the harrowing phone calls and before six families stared at their television sets, watching their foundation unravel on a cable news channel ...
Before the entire country had heard of that ghost plane soaring aimlessly over the Midwest ...
Before grown men and women crawled on their hands and knees, searching a field of grass in South Dakota for remnants of an ill-fated flight and six lives stolen out of midair ...
Before all of that, a new day crept over Florida's east coast on Oct. 25, 1999. It was warm, the sky was blue and six people were about to converge on an airport in Orlando.
The hours and minutes that followed were tinged with misfortune, as nightmarish as they were unforgettable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 a.m.
Bruce Borland left his Jupiter home and began driving north. The night before, he'd agreed to fly on a chartered plane with three prospective business partners. The group was to fly to Dallas and discuss designing a golf course together.
As he drove toward the potential business deal, the roads ahead of him were open and the sky above him was clear.
6:30 a.m.
In Central Florida, Capt. Michael Kling, 43, arrived at an airport in Sanford. Kling had more than 4,000 hours in the cockpit. Only 35 of those hours came in a Learjet 35, but he was still familiar with the instruments and controls of the plane.
He had only begun working for Sunjet Aviation -- the Sanford company that leased and operated the plane that would be used that day -- a few weeks earlier.
6:45 a.m.
Co-pilot Stephanie Bellegarrigue arrived at the airport in Sanford just before technicians began fueling the small plane. She performed a preflight inspection before Kling joined her in the cockpit.
7:30 a.m.
Payne Stewart, a popular professional golfer, was in the kitchen of his Orlando home, cooking pancakes for his family. After breakfast, his wife, Tracey, and the couple's two children piled into the car. Stewart stood on the porch and blew kisses to his family as they drove away.
Stewart, 42, was one of the most recognizable golfers in the world, with his trademark knickers and tam-o'-shanters. In recent years, he'd blossomed into a superstar on the PGA Tour, having won three majors and 11 tournaments.
His first career victory came in 1982 at the Quad Cities Open in Minnesota. For that victory, he received a $36,000 check -- minuscule by today's standards -- and a Rolex watch with "1982 QCO Champion" engraved on the back.
It was the same watch he slipped onto his wrist as he got ready that fall morning five years ago today. His bags were packed, including 10 pairs of knickers.
7:45 a.m.
Kling and Bellegarrigue took off from the Sanford airport, bound for Orlando International Airport, where they were to pick up four passengers.
8 a.m.
Van Ardan, a successful sports agent and close friend of Stewart, drove to the golfer's Orlando home. Stewart climbed into the passenger seat of the green GMC full-size van, and the two then headed to the airport.
Ardan was president of Leader Enterprises, the sports agency that represented Stewart. On the way to the airport, he called his wife.
"I just wanted to check if your cell phone was on," he said, "and to tell you I love you."
"I love you, too," Debbie Ardan said, "with all of my heart."
8:10 a.m.
The Learjet 35, a 23-year-old $2.5 million aircraft, landed at Orlando International Airport and taxied to a private terminal on the west side of the airport.
They all began to arrive. Kling and Bellegarrigue in the plane. Then the golfer and the agent in Ardan's car. Before parking, the pair drove under a huge banner that read, "Congratulations, Payne." It was placed there four months earlier after Stewart's dramatic win at the U.S. Open.
Borland parked his car at the airport, and Robert Fraley, the CEO of Leader Enterprises and a good friend of Stewart, was dropped off by his wife.
8:30 a.m.
Before boarding the aging charter plane, an airport technician saw Stewart point to a newer plane and say, "We should have taken [that one]."
8:45 a.m.
They were all there, all aboard the small plane.
What they didn't know was that earlier that morning, before the plane left Sanford, a technician spotted an oxygen mask dangling from the ceiling of the cabin. Was it a sign? They didn't know better.
They also didn't know that a major valve had been replaced on the plane just a few days earlier and the small plane hadn't been properly tested since. They didn't know that this plane was a late substitute for the one that had originally been requested. And they certainly had no idea what was about to happen in the next several minutes, the next several hours.
8:55 a.m.
The morning was unfolding perfectly. Ardan called his assistant in the Orlando offices of Leader Enterprises and let her know they would be arriving in Dallas a bit early.
9 a.m.
The jet, with "N47BA" inscribed in bold dark letters on the white tail, rolled onto the runway.
9:19 a.m.
The small aircraft lifted into the clear Florida sky. The flight plan had them landing in Dallas shortly after 11 a.m. ET. They were all scheduled to return to Florida -- to their wives and children -- at different times over the next several days.
9:21 a.m.
In the cockpit, the pilots contacted the Air Traffic Control Center near Jacksonville and reported a change of altitude. They were climbing to 14,000 feet.
9:23 a.m.
The flight was cleared to Cross City, where the plane was scheduled to make a left-hand turn and head straight toward Dallas.
In the main cabin, Stewart likely settled into one of the gray forward-facing seats. His family believes -- and evidence seems to support -- that Stewart almost immediately pulled a small book from his briefcase. In His Grip, given to him by the author, Wally Armstrong, is an inspirational book that draws parallels between golf and a spiritual life.
9:27 a.m.
In the cockpit, the pilots were still talking with air-traffic control, all standard flight conversation.
"Lear four seven bravo alpha. This is Jacksonville Center."
"Good morning, Jax," said Bellegarrigue, the co-pilot. "Four seven bravo alpha. Two-three-oh for two-six-oh."
Bellegarrigue was telling the controllers she was changing altitude from 23,000 feet to 26,000. Air-traffic controllers would tell her instead to climb to 39,000 feet: "Lear four seven bravo alpha. Jacksonville Center. Climb and maintain flight level three-niner-zero."
Bellegarrigue confirmed the new altitude: "Three-nine-oh bravo alpha."
It would be the last radio transmission to come from the small jet, now piercing the Florida sky and headed toward the state's Panhandle.
9:30 a.m.
In the cabin of the plane, an alarm likely began to sound. Before long all six people on board slipped into unconsciousness.
Investigators believe the plane rapidly began to lose air pressure. A powerful blast of air would have exploded into the cabin. The passengers would have noticed but only had 10-12 seconds to react.
The commotion would have been slow and muted.
Because the jet was 23 years old, oxygen masks did not automatically drop from the cabin ceiling as air pressure dropped.
9:33 a.m.
"November four seven bravo alpha," an air-traffic controller said. "Contact Jacksonville Center on one three five point six five."
There was no response. Both pilots should have been able to hear the command in their headsets.
Something was wrong. Something had happened early in this flight and . . . "November four seven bravo alpha," they called again . . . the plane was soaring, its leash of radio contact snapped and . . . "Contact Jacksonville Center on one three five point six five" . . . nobody knew if it was a simple lapse in transmission or whether something much more serious was happening.
9:40 a.m.
"In case you're wondering," one air-traffic controller told another, "I think he's dead."
Two starkly disparate scenes were unfolding.
On the ground, everything was frantic. Growing more nervous and excited with each passing second, controllers radioed the plane five times in 41/2 minutes, never receiving a response.
In the air, all was calm. The plane had passed Ocala and, set on autopilot, was heading in a northwesterly direction. It was quiet mostly, save for the growling engines on the outside and a blaring alarm inside.
9:45 a.m.
Less than 30 minutes into their flight, all six passengers were likely dead. The charter plane had experienced a serious breach. Stewart and the others surely felt something awry as the early stages of hypoxia -- the deficiency of oxygen to the brain -- set in.
The air at high altitudes -- typically, anything above 12,000 feet -- is considered too thin to breathe. Investigators believe the rapid loss of cabin pressure occurred when the jet was about 30,000 feet off the ground and the effects slammed the plane's passengers in tandem.
Their eyes likely began to water. Their skin crawled and the temperature around them plunged as cold air and dust invaded the cabin.
Cognitive functions slowed, vision blurred and speech slurred. Breathing the thin air became difficult, then impossible. Deprived of oxygen, it wasn't long before their hearts began to shut down.
9:56 a.m.
Air-traffic controllers radioed an American Airlines flight that was seven miles away and flying in the opposite direction. Those pilots tried to contact the small plane but got no response.
They did, however, see a vapor trail smeared across the blue sky.
9:58 a.m.
Military forces were first notified of the wayward charter. The Federal Aviation Administration requested an emergency escort from a pair of F-16s from Tyndall Air Force Base in the Panhandle.
10:08 a.m.
About 40 minutes had passed since the last radio contact with the charter aircraft. The Tyndall jets were pulled back. Instead, an F-16 from Eglin Air Force Base, which was performing training maneuvers over the Panhandle, was instructed to intercept the plane.
Capt. Chris Hamilton visited an airborne fuel tanker and topped off the tank. Then he raced through the sky in search of the charter plane. Officials still held out hope that the plane and its passengers were safe, that it was only the radio signal that suffered.
10:45 a.m.
Hamilton was about 2,000 feet away from the small plane and made two radio calls. Still no response. He wouldn't learn until much later, but Hamilton was too late.
11 a.m.
The F-16 maneuvered to within just 20 yards of the charter plane. Hamilton began a visual inspection of the plane, circling the small aircraft in midair. He saw no signs of life and didn't know how he could help.
"It's a very helpless feeling to pull up alongside another aircraft and realize the people inside that aircraft are potentially unconscious or in some other way incapacitated," Hamilton would later say. "And there's nothing I can do physically from my aircraft, even though I'm 50 to 100 feet away."
11:12 a.m.
The F-16 pilot reported back: No visible damage. Both engines running. Windows seem dark. Can't see inside. The cockpit windows, though, were "opaque, as if condensation or ice covered the inside," he said.
11:15 a.m.
Back in Orlando, Cindy Lisk was making a sandwich in the breakroom of Leader Enterprises. Lisk was an assistant who worked directly for Ardan and Fraley.
She hadn't heard from her bosses since Ardan's phone call more than two hours earlier, saying the flight would be leaving Orlando a bit early.
As she made her sandwich, her name was announced over the intercom. There was a phone call, someone with Sunjet Aviation.
"We have a problem with the plane," she was told.
In the sky, responsibility for tracking the plane shifted from Southeast Air Defense sector to Western Air Defense sector.
11:45 a.m.
Military officials confirmed to news outlets that they were tracking a small charter plane, and just a few minutes later, television news anchors began broadcasting the information over the air.
Initial media reports had limited information but the prospect of a plane falling from the sky at any moment was enough for news channels such as CNN to stick with the story. It wasn't long before military and aviation officials checked the plane's tail number, N47BA, and saw that the passenger list included Stewart's name. The story got much bigger, though viewers at home were only told that an unnamed golfer might be on board. By this point, the jet had traveled more than 1,200 miles, reaching altitudes of nearly 49,000 feet. It had already gone over Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Missouri and now was headed over Iowa. News anchors reported that five people were on board; it wasn't until much later they would learn about Borland, the late addition to the flight.
Noon
Tracey Stewart arrived home. After waving goodbye to her husband earlier that morning, she dropped the couple's two children off at school, visited a chiropractor and then met with a contractor friend.
She walked in the house and the family secretary, Gloria Baker, was hanging up the telephone.
"That was a weird phone call," Baker said.
"Why?" asked Tracey. "What do you mean?"
Baker explained that Dick Christoph, one of Stewart's college buddies from Southern Methodist University, called to say something about fighter pilots following Stewart's plane.
12:15 p.m.
Two F-16s from Oklahoma were ordered to intercept the small plane. The lead pilot reported to an air-traffic controller in Minneapolis that he saw no movement in the cockpit. Officials with the Northeast Air Defense Sector notified all parties: The plane has only one hour of fuel remaining.
Government officials later said they never considered shooting the small jet from the sky. It passed within a couple of hundred miles of cities such as Des Moines, Iowa, and Lincoln, Neb., and officials admitted that two armed fighter planes were instructed to wait on a runway in Fargo, N.D., placed on special alert.
12:20 p.m.
Tracey Stewart's phone rang again -- another concerned friend -- and she finally turned on the television. Panic and worst-case scenarios slowly crept up on her. She grabbed the phone and hurriedly dialed her husband's cell phone.
"This is Payne Stewart's phone," the recording of his voice said. "Sorry, he's not here right now. Leave him a message and I'll get it to him."
Tracey left a message: "Payne, we're hearing some strange things. Call me as soon as you get this message."
As soon as she hung up, her phone rang again. This time it was another of Stewart's college friends, Barry Snyder, calling from Pittsburgh.
"What's going on?" he asked Tracey.
She had no idea. The details were still being gathered high above.
12:38 p.m.
The Oklahoma F-16s had begun to circle the plane. The lead pilot reported the windshield was dark. He couldn't tell if it was iced over. The pilot flew in front of the plane and radioed the Minneapolis controller: "We're not seeing anything inside, could be just a dark cockpit, though he is not reacting, moving or anything like that. He should be able to have seen us by now."
The two Oklahoma jets departed briefly to refuel.
12:50 p.m.
By this time, four jets were escorting the small plane, two from Fargo and the two from Oklahoma. The lead Oklahoma pilot radioed: "We've got two visuals on it. It's looking like the cockpit window is iced over."
1 p.m.
Aviation laws require that all new aircraft include a flight data recorder -- better known as the "black box" -- that can hold two hours of information. Because the plane that was flying from Orlando to Dallas was built in 1976, its black box only recorded 30 minutes of information.
When investigators later got the data from the recorder, what they heard was eerie. There were no screams, no distress calls, no excitement of any kind. Just two blaring alarms, one that signaled the cabin had lost pressure and another that signaled the plane was moving too fast. Investigators listened to the recorder, and for 20 minutes the alarms were all they heard.
1:10 p.m.
The plane ran out of fuel over South Dakota, more than 1,000 miles north of its original destination in Dallas.
Its engines began to wind down. The autopilot function disconnected.
1:11 p.m.
Radar indicated the small plane made a right turn and started its descent. The Fargo F-16 lead pilot watched.
"The target is descending," he said, "and he is doing multiple [rolls], looks like he's out of control in a severe descent, request an emergency descent to follow target."
One of the Oklahoma planes followed. "It's soon to impact the ground," he reported. "He is in a descending spiral."
The jet neared the earth. It fell faster and faster: 40,000 feet, 600 mph. The seconds ticked away.
1:13 p.m.
The Learjet 35, carrying six frozen bodies, slammed into a large field in Mina, S.D., just a few miles west of Aberdeen. The closest signs of life were some cows, grazing about 100 yards away.
After the eight-mile dive, the plane's nose drilled more than 10 feet below the earth's surface, and the impact left a crater measuring 30 x 40 feet. The force of the crash made the wreckage unrecognizable. Two golf clubs that had been stowed in the rear of the plane were found at the bottom of the hole, mangled around the plane's nose.
There was no fuel to burn, and if the nation wasn't watching the drama on television, days could have passed before the hole was discovered.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Over the next several hours, family and friends would file into the Stewarts' Orlando home, offering condolences and support. Meanwhile, authorities in South Dakota began marking the field into a grid. They would dig through the hole and comb the surrounding area for shards of metal and pieces of airplane.
They recovered more than 25 pounds of identifiable human remains, mostly bones and teeth.
The six people were gone, their souls left somewhere in the sky. What remained in that field were memories, little trinkets that made up past lives. A wedding band. A college ring. A gold pendant. A Rolex watch face. Almost completely intact was a W.W.J.D. bracelet -- "What Would Jesus Do" -- a gift to Stewart from his son.
The golfer's briefcase was also found. It was closed, and several yards away was that little inspirational tome by Wally Armstrong.
None of the surviving family members ever received a call from anyone with the FAA, the NTSB or any investigators. Nobody needed official word, though.
They knew their loved ones were aboard.
They knew that everything had changed.
They knew a part of their own lives had been lost thousands of feet in the air.
Flying has become routine and barely worth a second thought -- airplanes take off and airplanes land.
People, though, on those rarest of occasions, do not land. They bound eternally upward, leaving behind sacred memories and loved ones grasping at vapor trails.
_________________
I remember the tears I shed that day and the days that followed not only for Payne but for his wife Tracy and his 2 children and for all of us who were touched by Payne.......
Here is the article. It's long.....it's sad...... and very heartbreaking...
Later in their lives, wedding anniversaries would be marked with tears. Birthdays marked with prayer. Holidays marked with empty seats.
But long before the sadness, before the counseling and before the funeral services ...
Before a mother's arms swallowed a young child that afternoon, before the pastor knelt beside the new widow and closed his eyes ...
Before the harrowing phone calls and before six families stared at their television sets, watching their foundation unravel on a cable news channel ...
Before the entire country had heard of that ghost plane soaring aimlessly over the Midwest ...
Before grown men and women crawled on their hands and knees, searching a field of grass in South Dakota for remnants of an ill-fated flight and six lives stolen out of midair ...
Before all of that, a new day crept over Florida's east coast on Oct. 25, 1999. It was warm, the sky was blue and six people were about to converge on an airport in Orlando.
The hours and minutes that followed were tinged with misfortune, as nightmarish as they were unforgettable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6 a.m.
Bruce Borland left his Jupiter home and began driving north. The night before, he'd agreed to fly on a chartered plane with three prospective business partners. The group was to fly to Dallas and discuss designing a golf course together.
As he drove toward the potential business deal, the roads ahead of him were open and the sky above him was clear.
6:30 a.m.
In Central Florida, Capt. Michael Kling, 43, arrived at an airport in Sanford. Kling had more than 4,000 hours in the cockpit. Only 35 of those hours came in a Learjet 35, but he was still familiar with the instruments and controls of the plane.
He had only begun working for Sunjet Aviation -- the Sanford company that leased and operated the plane that would be used that day -- a few weeks earlier.
6:45 a.m.
Co-pilot Stephanie Bellegarrigue arrived at the airport in Sanford just before technicians began fueling the small plane. She performed a preflight inspection before Kling joined her in the cockpit.
7:30 a.m.
Payne Stewart, a popular professional golfer, was in the kitchen of his Orlando home, cooking pancakes for his family. After breakfast, his wife, Tracey, and the couple's two children piled into the car. Stewart stood on the porch and blew kisses to his family as they drove away.
Stewart, 42, was one of the most recognizable golfers in the world, with his trademark knickers and tam-o'-shanters. In recent years, he'd blossomed into a superstar on the PGA Tour, having won three majors and 11 tournaments.
His first career victory came in 1982 at the Quad Cities Open in Minnesota. For that victory, he received a $36,000 check -- minuscule by today's standards -- and a Rolex watch with "1982 QCO Champion" engraved on the back.
It was the same watch he slipped onto his wrist as he got ready that fall morning five years ago today. His bags were packed, including 10 pairs of knickers.
7:45 a.m.
Kling and Bellegarrigue took off from the Sanford airport, bound for Orlando International Airport, where they were to pick up four passengers.
8 a.m.
Van Ardan, a successful sports agent and close friend of Stewart, drove to the golfer's Orlando home. Stewart climbed into the passenger seat of the green GMC full-size van, and the two then headed to the airport.
Ardan was president of Leader Enterprises, the sports agency that represented Stewart. On the way to the airport, he called his wife.
"I just wanted to check if your cell phone was on," he said, "and to tell you I love you."
"I love you, too," Debbie Ardan said, "with all of my heart."
8:10 a.m.
The Learjet 35, a 23-year-old $2.5 million aircraft, landed at Orlando International Airport and taxied to a private terminal on the west side of the airport.
They all began to arrive. Kling and Bellegarrigue in the plane. Then the golfer and the agent in Ardan's car. Before parking, the pair drove under a huge banner that read, "Congratulations, Payne." It was placed there four months earlier after Stewart's dramatic win at the U.S. Open.
Borland parked his car at the airport, and Robert Fraley, the CEO of Leader Enterprises and a good friend of Stewart, was dropped off by his wife.
8:30 a.m.
Before boarding the aging charter plane, an airport technician saw Stewart point to a newer plane and say, "We should have taken [that one]."
8:45 a.m.
They were all there, all aboard the small plane.
What they didn't know was that earlier that morning, before the plane left Sanford, a technician spotted an oxygen mask dangling from the ceiling of the cabin. Was it a sign? They didn't know better.
They also didn't know that a major valve had been replaced on the plane just a few days earlier and the small plane hadn't been properly tested since. They didn't know that this plane was a late substitute for the one that had originally been requested. And they certainly had no idea what was about to happen in the next several minutes, the next several hours.
8:55 a.m.
The morning was unfolding perfectly. Ardan called his assistant in the Orlando offices of Leader Enterprises and let her know they would be arriving in Dallas a bit early.
9 a.m.
The jet, with "N47BA" inscribed in bold dark letters on the white tail, rolled onto the runway.
9:19 a.m.
The small aircraft lifted into the clear Florida sky. The flight plan had them landing in Dallas shortly after 11 a.m. ET. They were all scheduled to return to Florida -- to their wives and children -- at different times over the next several days.
9:21 a.m.
In the cockpit, the pilots contacted the Air Traffic Control Center near Jacksonville and reported a change of altitude. They were climbing to 14,000 feet.
9:23 a.m.
The flight was cleared to Cross City, where the plane was scheduled to make a left-hand turn and head straight toward Dallas.
In the main cabin, Stewart likely settled into one of the gray forward-facing seats. His family believes -- and evidence seems to support -- that Stewart almost immediately pulled a small book from his briefcase. In His Grip, given to him by the author, Wally Armstrong, is an inspirational book that draws parallels between golf and a spiritual life.
9:27 a.m.
In the cockpit, the pilots were still talking with air-traffic control, all standard flight conversation.
"Lear four seven bravo alpha. This is Jacksonville Center."
"Good morning, Jax," said Bellegarrigue, the co-pilot. "Four seven bravo alpha. Two-three-oh for two-six-oh."
Bellegarrigue was telling the controllers she was changing altitude from 23,000 feet to 26,000. Air-traffic controllers would tell her instead to climb to 39,000 feet: "Lear four seven bravo alpha. Jacksonville Center. Climb and maintain flight level three-niner-zero."
Bellegarrigue confirmed the new altitude: "Three-nine-oh bravo alpha."
It would be the last radio transmission to come from the small jet, now piercing the Florida sky and headed toward the state's Panhandle.
9:30 a.m.
In the cabin of the plane, an alarm likely began to sound. Before long all six people on board slipped into unconsciousness.
Investigators believe the plane rapidly began to lose air pressure. A powerful blast of air would have exploded into the cabin. The passengers would have noticed but only had 10-12 seconds to react.
The commotion would have been slow and muted.
Because the jet was 23 years old, oxygen masks did not automatically drop from the cabin ceiling as air pressure dropped.
9:33 a.m.
"November four seven bravo alpha," an air-traffic controller said. "Contact Jacksonville Center on one three five point six five."
There was no response. Both pilots should have been able to hear the command in their headsets.
Something was wrong. Something had happened early in this flight and . . . "November four seven bravo alpha," they called again . . . the plane was soaring, its leash of radio contact snapped and . . . "Contact Jacksonville Center on one three five point six five" . . . nobody knew if it was a simple lapse in transmission or whether something much more serious was happening.
9:40 a.m.
"In case you're wondering," one air-traffic controller told another, "I think he's dead."
Two starkly disparate scenes were unfolding.
On the ground, everything was frantic. Growing more nervous and excited with each passing second, controllers radioed the plane five times in 41/2 minutes, never receiving a response.
In the air, all was calm. The plane had passed Ocala and, set on autopilot, was heading in a northwesterly direction. It was quiet mostly, save for the growling engines on the outside and a blaring alarm inside.
9:45 a.m.
Less than 30 minutes into their flight, all six passengers were likely dead. The charter plane had experienced a serious breach. Stewart and the others surely felt something awry as the early stages of hypoxia -- the deficiency of oxygen to the brain -- set in.
The air at high altitudes -- typically, anything above 12,000 feet -- is considered too thin to breathe. Investigators believe the rapid loss of cabin pressure occurred when the jet was about 30,000 feet off the ground and the effects slammed the plane's passengers in tandem.
Their eyes likely began to water. Their skin crawled and the temperature around them plunged as cold air and dust invaded the cabin.
Cognitive functions slowed, vision blurred and speech slurred. Breathing the thin air became difficult, then impossible. Deprived of oxygen, it wasn't long before their hearts began to shut down.
9:56 a.m.
Air-traffic controllers radioed an American Airlines flight that was seven miles away and flying in the opposite direction. Those pilots tried to contact the small plane but got no response.
They did, however, see a vapor trail smeared across the blue sky.
9:58 a.m.
Military forces were first notified of the wayward charter. The Federal Aviation Administration requested an emergency escort from a pair of F-16s from Tyndall Air Force Base in the Panhandle.
10:08 a.m.
About 40 minutes had passed since the last radio contact with the charter aircraft. The Tyndall jets were pulled back. Instead, an F-16 from Eglin Air Force Base, which was performing training maneuvers over the Panhandle, was instructed to intercept the plane.
Capt. Chris Hamilton visited an airborne fuel tanker and topped off the tank. Then he raced through the sky in search of the charter plane. Officials still held out hope that the plane and its passengers were safe, that it was only the radio signal that suffered.
10:45 a.m.
Hamilton was about 2,000 feet away from the small plane and made two radio calls. Still no response. He wouldn't learn until much later, but Hamilton was too late.
11 a.m.
The F-16 maneuvered to within just 20 yards of the charter plane. Hamilton began a visual inspection of the plane, circling the small aircraft in midair. He saw no signs of life and didn't know how he could help.
"It's a very helpless feeling to pull up alongside another aircraft and realize the people inside that aircraft are potentially unconscious or in some other way incapacitated," Hamilton would later say. "And there's nothing I can do physically from my aircraft, even though I'm 50 to 100 feet away."
11:12 a.m.
The F-16 pilot reported back: No visible damage. Both engines running. Windows seem dark. Can't see inside. The cockpit windows, though, were "opaque, as if condensation or ice covered the inside," he said.
11:15 a.m.
Back in Orlando, Cindy Lisk was making a sandwich in the breakroom of Leader Enterprises. Lisk was an assistant who worked directly for Ardan and Fraley.
She hadn't heard from her bosses since Ardan's phone call more than two hours earlier, saying the flight would be leaving Orlando a bit early.
As she made her sandwich, her name was announced over the intercom. There was a phone call, someone with Sunjet Aviation.
"We have a problem with the plane," she was told.
In the sky, responsibility for tracking the plane shifted from Southeast Air Defense sector to Western Air Defense sector.
11:45 a.m.
Military officials confirmed to news outlets that they were tracking a small charter plane, and just a few minutes later, television news anchors began broadcasting the information over the air.
Initial media reports had limited information but the prospect of a plane falling from the sky at any moment was enough for news channels such as CNN to stick with the story. It wasn't long before military and aviation officials checked the plane's tail number, N47BA, and saw that the passenger list included Stewart's name. The story got much bigger, though viewers at home were only told that an unnamed golfer might be on board. By this point, the jet had traveled more than 1,200 miles, reaching altitudes of nearly 49,000 feet. It had already gone over Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee and Missouri and now was headed over Iowa. News anchors reported that five people were on board; it wasn't until much later they would learn about Borland, the late addition to the flight.
Noon
Tracey Stewart arrived home. After waving goodbye to her husband earlier that morning, she dropped the couple's two children off at school, visited a chiropractor and then met with a contractor friend.
She walked in the house and the family secretary, Gloria Baker, was hanging up the telephone.
"That was a weird phone call," Baker said.
"Why?" asked Tracey. "What do you mean?"
Baker explained that Dick Christoph, one of Stewart's college buddies from Southern Methodist University, called to say something about fighter pilots following Stewart's plane.
12:15 p.m.
Two F-16s from Oklahoma were ordered to intercept the small plane. The lead pilot reported to an air-traffic controller in Minneapolis that he saw no movement in the cockpit. Officials with the Northeast Air Defense Sector notified all parties: The plane has only one hour of fuel remaining.
Government officials later said they never considered shooting the small jet from the sky. It passed within a couple of hundred miles of cities such as Des Moines, Iowa, and Lincoln, Neb., and officials admitted that two armed fighter planes were instructed to wait on a runway in Fargo, N.D., placed on special alert.
12:20 p.m.
Tracey Stewart's phone rang again -- another concerned friend -- and she finally turned on the television. Panic and worst-case scenarios slowly crept up on her. She grabbed the phone and hurriedly dialed her husband's cell phone.
"This is Payne Stewart's phone," the recording of his voice said. "Sorry, he's not here right now. Leave him a message and I'll get it to him."
Tracey left a message: "Payne, we're hearing some strange things. Call me as soon as you get this message."
As soon as she hung up, her phone rang again. This time it was another of Stewart's college friends, Barry Snyder, calling from Pittsburgh.
"What's going on?" he asked Tracey.
She had no idea. The details were still being gathered high above.
12:38 p.m.
The Oklahoma F-16s had begun to circle the plane. The lead pilot reported the windshield was dark. He couldn't tell if it was iced over. The pilot flew in front of the plane and radioed the Minneapolis controller: "We're not seeing anything inside, could be just a dark cockpit, though he is not reacting, moving or anything like that. He should be able to have seen us by now."
The two Oklahoma jets departed briefly to refuel.
12:50 p.m.
By this time, four jets were escorting the small plane, two from Fargo and the two from Oklahoma. The lead Oklahoma pilot radioed: "We've got two visuals on it. It's looking like the cockpit window is iced over."
1 p.m.
Aviation laws require that all new aircraft include a flight data recorder -- better known as the "black box" -- that can hold two hours of information. Because the plane that was flying from Orlando to Dallas was built in 1976, its black box only recorded 30 minutes of information.
When investigators later got the data from the recorder, what they heard was eerie. There were no screams, no distress calls, no excitement of any kind. Just two blaring alarms, one that signaled the cabin had lost pressure and another that signaled the plane was moving too fast. Investigators listened to the recorder, and for 20 minutes the alarms were all they heard.
1:10 p.m.
The plane ran out of fuel over South Dakota, more than 1,000 miles north of its original destination in Dallas.
Its engines began to wind down. The autopilot function disconnected.
1:11 p.m.
Radar indicated the small plane made a right turn and started its descent. The Fargo F-16 lead pilot watched.
"The target is descending," he said, "and he is doing multiple [rolls], looks like he's out of control in a severe descent, request an emergency descent to follow target."
One of the Oklahoma planes followed. "It's soon to impact the ground," he reported. "He is in a descending spiral."
The jet neared the earth. It fell faster and faster: 40,000 feet, 600 mph. The seconds ticked away.
1:13 p.m.
The Learjet 35, carrying six frozen bodies, slammed into a large field in Mina, S.D., just a few miles west of Aberdeen. The closest signs of life were some cows, grazing about 100 yards away.
After the eight-mile dive, the plane's nose drilled more than 10 feet below the earth's surface, and the impact left a crater measuring 30 x 40 feet. The force of the crash made the wreckage unrecognizable. Two golf clubs that had been stowed in the rear of the plane were found at the bottom of the hole, mangled around the plane's nose.
There was no fuel to burn, and if the nation wasn't watching the drama on television, days could have passed before the hole was discovered.
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Over the next several hours, family and friends would file into the Stewarts' Orlando home, offering condolences and support. Meanwhile, authorities in South Dakota began marking the field into a grid. They would dig through the hole and comb the surrounding area for shards of metal and pieces of airplane.
They recovered more than 25 pounds of identifiable human remains, mostly bones and teeth.
The six people were gone, their souls left somewhere in the sky. What remained in that field were memories, little trinkets that made up past lives. A wedding band. A college ring. A gold pendant. A Rolex watch face. Almost completely intact was a W.W.J.D. bracelet -- "What Would Jesus Do" -- a gift to Stewart from his son.
The golfer's briefcase was also found. It was closed, and several yards away was that little inspirational tome by Wally Armstrong.
None of the surviving family members ever received a call from anyone with the FAA, the NTSB or any investigators. Nobody needed official word, though.
They knew their loved ones were aboard.
They knew that everything had changed.
They knew a part of their own lives had been lost thousands of feet in the air.
Flying has become routine and barely worth a second thought -- airplanes take off and airplanes land.
People, though, on those rarest of occasions, do not land. They bound eternally upward, leaving behind sacred memories and loved ones grasping at vapor trails.
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I remember that day, it was so very sad, and still is.
