“He truly was my hero”

Jeff Makepeace was adventurous and big-hearted, a self-made man who had recently earned a pilot’s license and was flying with his family to Moab when his plane crashed near Glenwood Springs last week, his brother said Monday.

“He truly was my hero,” said Caleb Makepeace. “He would do anything for absolutely anybody.”

Jeff and Jennifer Makepeace, his wife, and their two children, Addison and Benjamin, 10-year-old twins, died in the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash about 15 miles north of Glenwood Springs.

“The aircraft, a Cirrus SR 22, disappeared below radar late Friday night and crashed under unknown circumstances,” FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer said in a email Monday.

Jeff, 47, who grew up in Naples, N.Y., a small town in the Finger Lakes region, moved to Colorado in the early 1990s, his brother said.

He went to work for Lind’s Plumbing and Heating in Fort Collins and worked his way up in the company, said Caleb, 38. “In 2006, Master Plumber Jeff Makepeace — employed by the company’s founder, Robert Lind — purchased the company,” according to Lind’s website.

He married Jennifer, 45, about 12 years ago. Their children turned 10 shortly before the accident.

Jeff and Jennifer, a homemaker, were a good pair.

“She was very outgoing, a good match for Jeff, because she was adventurous,” Caleb Makepeace said. “If he wanted to go climb a mountain, she was right there with him.”

The twins, born within an hour of each other, were a study in opposites, Caleb said. Like his father, Benjamin was mechanically inclined and always on the run.

Addison was fond of the TV show “Little House on the Prairie,” about a family living on a farm in Minnesota in the late 19th century. The show was based on a series of books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Addison was an “old soul,” Caleb said. “She would dress up as Laura Ingalls in a little bonnet,” he added. “She loved to bake with my sister, who owns a bakery business in New York.”

Jeff Makepeace got his pilot’s license this year and owned the plane that went down in the Baxter Peak area.

An air search found debris from the crash shortly before 11:40 a.m. Saturday.

The plane was last reported about 9 miles north of Rifle.

The recovery effort remains underway, Caleb said.