FRIENDS RECALL SPIRIT OF PAIR KILLED IN PLANE CRASH.Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer Flying and traveling were what Howard and Marilyn Culbertson loved to do the most. Neighbors of the Newbury Park couple and pilots who knew Howard Culbertson said Friday they were stunned stun tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns 1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow. 2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise. 3. by the news the Culbertsons had died when their homemade plane crashed at a New Mexico New Mexico, state in the SW United States. At its northwestern corner are the so-called Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet at right angles; New Mexico is also bordered by Oklahoma (NE), Texas (E, S), and Mexico (S). airport Wednesday. The Culbertsons were traveling to a family reunion Often an annual event, a family reunion takes place on a specified day each year for the purpose of keeping an extended family closer together. Some reunions may be held less often. in Missouri. ``We were shocked. He and his wife had flown all over the country,'' said Leonard Goodman, who met Howard Culbertson through the Camarillo Airport Camarillo Airport (ICAO: KCMA, FAA LID: CMA) is a public airport located three miles (5 km) west of the central business district of Camarillo, a city in Ventura County, California, United States. chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association. ``He has several thousand miles flying in that plane. His wife flew with him everywhere.'' Culbertson, a retired electrician, built the Thorpe T-18 plane in the garage of the family's home on Gerald Drive in the early 1970s. The project was yet another example of what Culbertson could do with his hands, said Richard Wilson There have been many people named Richard Wilson, including:
``He was always working on something. It was a real accomplishment,'' Wilson recalled. The handful of neighbors who knew the Culbertsons said they were a quiet couple who raised two sons in the neighborhood of 30-year-old homes near Borchard Community Park. The Culbertsons traveled as much as they stayed home. The couple visited China two years ago and returned from a trip to Russia before taking off in their plane for the family reunion, Wilson said. Marilyn Culbertson told Wilson on Tuesday that they were flying to Laughlin, Nev., and then to Missouri. The couple was killed when the single-engine plane crashed Wednesday afternoon at Double Eagle II Airport Double Eagle II Airport (IATA: AEG, ICAO: KAEG) serves Albuquerque, New Mexico. On the far westside of the city, it is Albuquerque’s second airport after Albuquerque International Sunport. in Albuquerque, N.M. Federal investigators were seeking a cause for the crash, National Transportation Safety Board investigator Joyce Smith told the Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. . The wreckage was found near the end of one of Double Eagle's two runways around 1 p.m. Wednesday by city Aviation Department employees. No one saw it crash, so the precise time of the crash wasn't known. The airport has no control tower. Wilson said the couple's two sons, Randy and Jim Culbertson, were in New Mexico to identify their parents. The Culbertsons moved their plane from Santa Paula Airport Santa Paula Airport (IATA: SZP, ICAO: KSZP, FAA LID: SZP) is a privately-owned public-use airport located one mile (2 km) southeast of the central business district (CBD) of Santa Paula, a city in Ventura County, California, USA. to Camarillo Airport many years ago because the airstrip was closer to their Newbury Park home. Members of the experimental aircraft group at Camarillo Airport planned a tribute to the Culbertsons when the pilots come together for their regular monthly meeting today. Goodman said the pilots planned to fly a missing-man formation over the airport, with one of five planes turning away from the group in memory of the couple. ``I don't think any pilot ever thinks he's going in,'' Goodman said. |
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