Jessica Dubroff: A seven year old who lived by her own rules.

A few days ago I was looking into getting started for my pilot licence, something I’ve wanted since I was 18, when I stumbled across and article about a seven year old little girl called Jessica Dubroff. To be perfectly honest I had never heard of her before, but I became hooked on her story. She lived her own dreams not caring what people said about her and I’d like to share her story with you guys:

She was born in Massachusetts on the 5^th of May 1988, to Lisa Blair Hathaway and Lloyd Dubroff and moved to California when she was four with her older brother Joshua and her younger sister Jasmine. She began taking flight lessons from flight instructor Joe Reid on her sixth birthday, and became enthusiastic about flying. Her father, who was separated from her mother by this time, suggested the idea of a coast-to-coast flight, which Jessica readily accepted, and Reid agreed to provide flight instruction and his four seated single engine aircraft for the endeavour. They decided to name their flight "Sea to Shining Sea".

Jessica would sit in the front left seat, Reid in the front right, and Lloyd in the back. It was agreed that Reid would be paid for his services at normal flight instruction rates, plus compensation for the layover time. Reid reportedly told his wife that he considered the flight a "non-event for aviation," simply "flying cross country with a 7-year-old sitting next to you and the parents paying for it.”

Nevertheless, Jessica became an instant media celebrity, having already logged 33 hours of flight time in such a short time. ABC News gave Lloyd a video camera and blank cassettes to tape the flight; once the journey began, it was vigorously followed by supporters, media outlets, and others who monitored its progress, reporting each time Dubroff landed or took off- Jessica had to be assisted by Reid in one of the landings due to high winds.

Dubroff, her father, and her flight instructor arrived in Cheyenne and after some media interviews they got a ride to their hotel in the car of a local radio station program director, who recalled them discussing the forecast weather conditions for the next day. Composite radar image  was showing precipitation intensity around Cheyenne airport at time of departure.

The weather in the morning of the flight, the north and west of Cheyenne was hit by torrential rain but weather conditions were much better to the east, where the flight was headed. Since it began to rain at the airport and the weather seemed to be deteriorating, the program director invited her to stay in Cheyenne, but Dubroff's father declined, explaining that they wanted to "beat the storm" which was approaching.

 Reid decided to take off despite the worsening conditions at the airport, and to try to escape the poor weather by turning immediately eastward. Just before take off Jessica called her mum from the plane phone “Can you hear the rain? Can you hear the rain” The last words Jessica spoke before they were cut off.

As the aircraft began taxiing to the departure runway, it was raining and visibility at the airport fell below the three mile minimum required for VFR flight. Cheyenne's control tower advised the Cessna about the reduced visibility and that the "field is IFR." Reid then requested and received from the control tower a special VFR clearance to allow him to exit the airport's control zone visually, despite the reduced visibility.

At 8:24 AM MST, Dubroff's aircraft began its take off roll from Cheyenne's runway 30 to the northwest, in rain, strong gusty crosswinds and turbulence. According to witnesses, the plane lifted off and climbed slowly, with its nose high and its wings wobbling. It began a gradual right turn, and after reaching an altitude of a few hundred feet, the plane rolled out of its turn, then descended rapidly, crashing at a near-vertical angle into a street in a residential neighbourhood.

The 7-year-old student pilot, Her father, Lloyd Dubroff, 57, and her flight instructor, Joe Reid, died when the plane nose-dived into the driveway of a single-story brick home in a residential area about one mile north of the airport. At the airport now lays a sign : "A little girl and her big dream died here Thursday morning."

Jessica Dubroff (1988-1996)

“Do you hear the rain? Do you hear the rain?”