PLANE COLLISION Loss of student, instructor stuns flight school

The four fatalities also included men from Middlefield and Newbury.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Christopher J. Erdovegi, a 19-year-old who dreamed of being a commercial pilot, climbed into the air to practice reading instruments on his aircraft.
Next to him inside the Cessna 172 L was Alan L. Lyons, a 38-year-old flight instructor whose wife is expecting their fourth child. Both men and two others were killed Friday when their small plane collided with a Lancair 235 over Northeast Ohio.
Killed in the second plane were John P. Plavcan, 55, of Newbury, and Mark P. Schaden, 36, of Middlefield.
Flight academy mourns
"We're totally crushed," said Mike Kolomichuk, president of American Winds Flight Academy in Akron, where Erdovegi, of Lakewood, had earned his private pilot license in August and Lyons, of Shreve, was one of seven instructors.
Kolomichuk said the mood at the flight school was somber Saturday as he and his staff continued to ask questions about what happened. An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board office in Chicago was sent to the scene, about 35 miles west of Youngstown. No cause had been determined.
The collision occurred above rural Rootstown in Portage County, in airspace that the school uses as a training area, Kolomichuk said. Student pilots typically practice at altitudes between 2,000 and 3,000 feet.
Erdovegi and Lyons had departed Akron Fulton International Airport, where the flight school is based, about 1 p.m. and were due back at 3 p.m., Kolomichuk said.
The Cessna came to rest upside down in a field near a house.
The Lancair crashed about a quarter-mile away near a roadside. It was registered to Plavcan, according to the Federal Aviation Administration Web site. The origin and destination of that flight was not released.
The Cessna was part of the flight school's rental fleet. The plane was routinely inspected by the school's full-time maintenance crew and was in excellent operating condition, Kolomichuk said.
Family background
Lyons had retired from the U.S. Marine Corps earlier this year and moved his wife and three children from North Carolina to the Akron area, where she had family, Kolomichuk said.
The flight school intends to create a scholarship fund for Lyons' children, Kolomichuk said.
The bodies of the four men were taken to Cleveland and Akron for autopsies. Based on medical histories provided by their families, none of the four men had any health problems that would have interfered with their ability to operate an aircraft, said Dr. Roger Marcial, the Portage County coroner.
Erdovegi's father, John, said his son was studying aeronautical engineering at Kent State University. The sophomore started flying after graduating from St. Edward High School in 2004, his father said. He had logged about 80 hours.
Erdovegi, who would have turned 20 in two weeks, became interested in flying while attending Cleveland Air Shows as he was growing up, his father said.
A phone message was left Saturday at a listing for Plavcan. A message was also left at the home of Schaden's parents.