A former Marine pilot who flew in Vietnam was flying the Cessna 310 that crashed in the San Juan Mountains, killing four people, including the pilot’s son-in-law.
Harold Raggio, 71, did two tours of duty in Vietnam, and survived a helicopter crash when the aircraft was shot out of the sky, his daughter, Reany Raggio, 46, said Tuesday.
“The plane was life to my dad,” she said. “I grew up at air shows.”
The plane crashed on steep, mountainous terrain at about 11,500 feet, said National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson.
The NTSB was unable to get to the site Tuesday, he added. A wreckage recovery team will be on the scene on Thursday to remove the wreckage and bring it to an unspecified location where it will be inspected, Knudson said.
Raggio, of Newberry Springs, Calif., kept a plane at Daggett Aviation Inc., and recently moved to another hanger at Big Bear Airport, said Alan Hamm, who runs Daggett Aviation, a fixed-based operator at Barstow-Daggett Airport.
NTSB tail number for the plane that crashed on a mountain side near Silverton shows a Cessna 310 registered to Raggio.
He took off from Big Bear early Saturday morning and picked up some friends at Daggett Aviation, which is northeast of Los Angeles, before 8 a.m., Hamm said.
He said Raggio was headed to Amarillo and stopped for gas in Flagstaff, Ariz.
“He was taking my brother-in-law to see a friend. They were going to have lunch and then fly back,” Reany Raggio said. “My nephew lost his grandfather and father.”
Knudson said the pilot did not file a flight plan. “That is not unusual,” Knudson said.
Both Raggio, and a man who was acting as his co-pilot, were rated to fly a single engine plane, said Knudson. The Cessna 310 is a duel engine plane, he added.
Besides her brother-in-law, Steve Wilkinson, a co-pilot friend of Raggio’s was aboard with his girlfriend, she said. She didn’t know the co-pilot’s name.
The pair were flying visually, Knudson said.
While in the Marine Corps, Raggio flew F-4 Phantom jets, Hamm said.
“He had some good stories of flying out of Yuma during the day,” Hamm said. Raggio was “a real nice guy. He has got all his family here, grandkids. He was always giving rides, anytime anybody wanted to go for a ride he was ready.”
Reany Raggio said her father, who had two other children, as well, was fun, a great guy who loved kids.
“He helped everybody, he was all about kids,” she said. “The whole Newberry Springs is in mourning, everybody was a friend.”
He had two great grand children and 10 grand children, and was looking forward to his 50th anniversary in January, his daughter said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or
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