Jerry Golden

Jerry Golden

OCEAN SPRINGS -- Jerry Golden died doing what he loved to do best.

The 61-year-old Air Force veteran obtained his private flying license when he was in his teens. He’s been flying ever since, mostly in and out of town to nearby Jacksonville, where he worked for Aerotek. In December, wife Deborah said, he bought a 1960 model Cessna 150 to use to make weekend trips home.

Golden’s plane crashed just after takeoff Sunday night from a small airport west of Tallahassee, Fla. He’d just stopped the two seat, single-engine, propeller-driven plane at Quincy Municipal Airport, where Golden’s wife of 36 years said he’d usually stop to refuel on his way to Jacksonville.

Jerry Golden

Between 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Sunday, Golden’s plane crashed on departure. Authorities said it was overcast and foggy and there was rain.

The plane was found about 150 feet off a dirt road, within a mile of the airport.

Deborah Golden has found some comfort in knowing her husband died doing what he loved.

“He couldn’t have died a happier man,” she said. “He just couldn’t have because he died doing what he loved the most. He loved being around aircraft of any kind.”

In fact, Golden’s love of flying began as a young boy. By the time he was 19, he’d earned his private flying license and spent the following years flying as much as he could.

When he wasn’t flying, he was either pulling pranks on friends or building something.

He was known as a jack-of-all-trades. He could take a television apart and put it back together. And when his family lost their home in Hurricane Katrina, he willed himself to build it back on his own.

As a longtime member of First Baptist Church in Ocean Springs, he also was known to spend a lot of his time there pulling jokes on friends. “We were going to take his cell phone away from him because he was constantly texting somebody in church to see whose phone would go off or he would say something silly to see if he could get them to laugh out loud,” Deborah Golden said.

Source: http://www.sunherald.com

 

IDENTIFICATION
  Regis#: 73JK        Make/Model: C150      Description: 150, A150, Commuter, Aerobat
  Date: 01/22/2012     Time: 1200

  Event Type: Accident   Highest Injury: Fatal     Mid Air: N    Missing: N
  Damage: Unknown

LOCATION
  City: QUINCY   State: FL   Country: US

DESCRIPTION
  AIRCRAFT CRASHED UNDER UNKNOWN CIRCUMSTANCES, THE 1 PERSON ON BOARD WAS 
  FATALLY INJURED. QUINCY, FL

INJURY DATA      Total Fatal:   1
                 # Crew:   1     Fat:   1     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    
                 # Pass:   0     Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    
                 # Grnd:         Fat:   0     Ser:   0     Min:   0     Unk:    


OTHER DATA
  Activity: Unknown      Phase: Unknown      Operation: OTHER


  FAA FSDO: ORLANDO, FL  (SO15)                   Entry date: 01/23/2012