Lennon's widow, Lara Goldman Lennon, says it's a plane that should be grounded. "The MU-2 is a slow killer," she said. "It kills them in ones and twos."
Her husband had dreamed of becoming a passenger pilot, and in March 1999, he called his mother with the news: "Mom, they hired me," he said, donning the crisp U.S. Airways pilot's uniform at age 29. Then the 9/11 attacks shocked the nation, and travelers suddenly avoided the skies. Lennon's job was downsized.
He returned to ferrying freight, squeezing his 6-foot-7 frame into tiny turboprops to haul bundles of canceled checks for a living.
Familiar with the industry and the government's crash conclusions, the pilot soon had another message to convey. " 'Mom, if anything ever happens to me, don't be upset by what you read,' " his mother, Barbara Ward, recounted. " 'Because it always comes back to pilot error.' "
In this working-class community of one-story homes, the residents have a different message. Nearby, a bench is erected in a shady alcove next to United Methodist Church. "In Loving Memory of Pilot Thomas F. Lennon," it reads. "A Gentle Giant."
| Reporting by Ronnie Greene | Photography by Candace Barbot | Audio Editing by Rhonda Victor Sibilia | Online Production by Stephanie Rosenblatt | (c) Miami Herald July 9, 2006 |