California pilot killed in Ribera crash remembered

The aviation community is mourning the pilot of a small plane who died Friday in a crash near Ribera, southeast of Santa Fe.

Pat Napolitano, 53, of Clovis, Calif., died in the crash. His identity was confirmed by a friend, his employer and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

He was the pilot of a red and white biplane named Queenie that he flew for Mid-Continent Instruments and Avionics out of Wichita, Kan., the company confirmed in a Facebook post.

“Everybody is just completely blown away by this,” said Jeff Barnes, who added he considered Napolitano a mentor.

According to a Federal Aviation Association report, Napolitano’s body was found in the wreckage 30 miles southeast of Santa Fe on Friday night. A news release from the Civil Air Patrol said air traffic control lost contact with the plane, which was headed to Albuquerque, and a rescue helicopter from the Kirtland Air Force Base spotted the plane.

The National Transportation Safety Bureau is investigating the crash.

Barnes said he met Napolitano at the Chandler Executive Airport in Fresno, Calif., about five years ago when he was

working on his pilot’s license.

Barnes said Napolitano, an experienced pilot, was happy to share safety tips and always put safety first.

Barnes said Napolitano grew up in Southern California, near the Van Nuys Airport in the greater Los Angeles area.

“He would obsess over the planes,” Barnes said. “And when he was young, he would jump the fence and do whatever he could — sweeping floors, whatever he could — to get an in.”

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association said in a story Tuesday that Napolitano spent his early years flying North American T-6 Texans, singleengine planes used to train U.S. military pilots.

Most recently, Napolitano had been flying the Beechcraft D17S Staggerwing named Queenie. According to the Aircraft Owners story, the “obsessive, detail-oriented” Napolitano flew Queenie about 200 hours each year and had flown the plane cross-country at least a dozen times.

And Queenie was his queen, according to the article. He always took off his shoes before stepping into the cabin, the article said, and he once opted out of having the plane judged because he couldn’t “listen to anyone criticize her without feeling the urge to punch them in the mouth,” they reported.