A 61-year-old Wheat Ridge pilot who routinely criss-crossed the globe in cargo and charter planes, was one of three men killed in a runway plane crash at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport.
Robert Roger Maynard was killed Nov. 28 when the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 Freighter he was in crashed during departure, caught on fire and broke apart, his friend and fellow pilot Al Gideon, 59, confirmed today.
“He was what you would call a freight dog – pilots who fly freighters all over the world,” Gideon said. “They’re a unique breed.”
Dating back to 1972, when he and Gideon took flight school lessons together, Maynard had always made a living around planes, either fueling them up or flying charter or cargo planes across the country and around the world.
Maynard sported a Fu Manchu mustache when Gideon first met him, his friend said. He had a great sense of humor and an unpretentious personality. Though he became a flight captain, his uniform was simply jeans and a T-shirt.
Maynard, who was married to Dorina and had a son, Nicholas, and daughter, Savannah, always had a smile on his face even through tough times, Gideon said.
He often travelled from Europe, to Africa to Asia on missions that took weeks to complete.
“It can be a romantic life,” Gideon said. “It can be lonely too.”
Though the trips were grueling, he was always meticulous about making two-hour safety checks before flights.
His long-time employer went out of business in August of 2008 and Maynard had been out of work for a year.
Avient hired him in September in part because he had vast experience flying the MD-11. He was part of a crew that flew a plane for the first time after it had been refurbished. They flew to Europe, Nigeria and then Shanghai.
The plane was taking off for Kyrgyzstan when it crashed.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
