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After crash, Oregon’s Gearhart asks ‘Why?’
By Joseph B. Frazier, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, August 06, 2008 | No comments posted.
After crash, Oregon’s Gearhart asks ‘Why?’
Residents of the quiet coastal resort and retirement community of Gearhart on the north Oregon coast are trying to piece together the hows and whys of a plane crash that ripped into the families of two daughters of a former Oregon attorney general.
One daughter was in the house Monday when a single-engine Cessna crashed into it. Another was on a walk with her husband.
Both daughters survived, but the crash killed three children — grandchildren of Lee Johnson, a former legislator and judge who also was a two-term attorney general more than three decades ago.
Johnson now lives in California.
The plane crashed in the fog Monday just after taking off. It touched off an explosion that rattled houses for a half mile. The pilot and his passenger died.
On Tuesday, Ruth Johnson-Reimann, 47, Christopher Reimann, 13 and Sarah Reimann, 11, of Portland, were at Legacy Emanuel Hospital’s burn center in Portland. At the request of the family, the hospital did not release condition reports.
The dead in the house were Julia Reimann, 10, of Portland and her cousins, Hesam Farrar Masoudi, 12, and Grace Masoudi, 8, of Denver.
They were starting what was to be a two-week vacation and family reunion.
Away from the home on a walk were parents Dr. Frederick Masoudi and Marie Johnson-Masoudi and another daughter, Elizabeth, 14.
The pilot was Jason Ketcheson, 36, a Clatsop County resident, and the passenger was Frank Toohey, 58, of Warrenton.
Dr. Frederick Masoudi is a cardiologist at Denver Health Medical Clinic. His wife is a nurse-midwife at Kaiser Permanente in Denver.
“All of us here in Denver Health are keeping Dr. Masoudi and his family in our thoughts and prayers and providing them time to heal as a family,” spokeswoman Dee Martinez said
Johnson was attorney general from 1968 to 1977. He was also a state legislator, a trial and appeals judge, and a top aide to Republican Gov. Vic Atiyeh.
“People are talking about how devastating it was, how sad, that it never should have happened,” said Jennifer Rodgers, owner of Jennifer’s Barber Shop in Gearhart.
“It’s a bit quiet today. People are trying to figure out how it happened, why it happened,” she said.
She said she knew Toohey, and that his wife came to tell her the news Monday afternoon.
“He thought the world of his children,” she said. “He had two sons.”
She said the boys had flown in from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where both worked selling time shares, as their father did.
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were on the scene investigating, but it can take months for their conclusions to be released.
Roy Bennett of Seaside, who served with Ketcheson on the advisory board for Seaside’s municipal airport, said the plane’s owner, Allen Sprague, was “very meticulous” and sometimes used the plane for excursion flights in connection with the flight service he owns.
He said Sprague would voluntarily ground the plane himself if he found anything out of order.
He described Ketcheson as “likable, a gung-ho type guy ready to take charge.”
He said Ketcheson also sold time shares and was developing commercial space below a new parking structure in nearby Seaside. “He had some other ventures,” he said.
He said Ketcheson was an experienced pilot and a licensed instructor, recently divorced with two or three children.
Residents of the quiet coastal resort and retirement community of Gearhart on the north Oregon coast are trying to piece together the hows and whys of a plane crash that ripped into the families of two daughters of a former Oregon attorney general.
One daughter was in the house Monday when a single-engine Cessna crashed into it. Another was on a walk with her husband.
Both daughters survived, but the crash killed three children — grandchildren of Lee Johnson, a former legislator and judge who also was a two-term attorney general more than three decades ago.
Johnson now lives in California.
The plane crashed in the fog Monday just after taking off. It touched off an explosion that rattled houses for a half mile. The pilot and his passenger died.
On Tuesday, Ruth Johnson-Reimann, 47, Christopher Reimann, 13 and Sarah Reimann, 11, of Portland, were at Legacy Emanuel Hospital’s burn center in Portland. At the request of the family, the hospital did not release condition reports.
The dead in the house were Julia Reimann, 10, of Portland and her cousins, Hesam Farrar Masoudi, 12, and Grace Masoudi, 8, of Denver.
They were starting what was to be a two-week vacation and family reunion.
Away from the home on a walk were parents Dr. Frederick Masoudi and Marie Johnson-Masoudi and another daughter, Elizabeth, 14.
The pilot was Jason Ketcheson, 36, a Clatsop County resident, and the passenger was Frank Toohey, 58, of Warrenton.
Dr. Frederick Masoudi is a cardiologist at Denver Health Medical Clinic. His wife is a nurse-midwife at Kaiser Permanente in Denver.
“All of us here in Denver Health are keeping Dr. Masoudi and his family in our thoughts and prayers and providing them time to heal as a family,” spokeswoman Dee Martinez said
Johnson was attorney general from 1968 to 1977. He was also a state legislator, a trial and appeals judge, and a top aide to Republican Gov. Vic Atiyeh.
“People are talking about how devastating it was, how sad, that it never should have happened,” said Jennifer Rodgers, owner of Jennifer’s Barber Shop in Gearhart.
“It’s a bit quiet today. People are trying to figure out how it happened, why it happened,” she said.
She said she knew Toohey, and that his wife came to tell her the news Monday afternoon.
“He thought the world of his children,” she said. “He had two sons.”
She said the boys had flown in from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where both worked selling time shares, as their father did.
Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were on the scene investigating, but it can take months for their conclusions to be released.
Roy Bennett of Seaside, who served with Ketcheson on the advisory board for Seaside’s municipal airport, said the plane’s owner, Allen Sprague, was “very meticulous” and sometimes used the plane for excursion flights in connection with the flight service he owns.
He said Sprague would voluntarily ground the plane himself if he found anything out of order.
He described Ketcheson as “likable, a gung-ho type guy ready to take charge.”
He said Ketcheson also sold time shares and was developing commercial space below a new parking structure in nearby Seaside. “He had some other ventures,” he said.
He said Ketcheson was an experienced pilot and a licensed instructor, recently divorced with two or three children.
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