Arizona plane crash kills Embry Riddle professor, father

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A sheriff's official in eastern Arizona says two Florida men killed when their single-engine plane crashed next to a home were a father and son.

Navajo County Chief Deputy Randy Moffitt identified the men killed in the crash Friday in a subdivision in the unincorporated community of Overgaard as 82-year-old Jay A. Lynch of Port Orange and Randall J. Lynch of Daytona Beach.

Terri Lynch, Randall's wife, said her husband grew up flying everywhere with her father.

"Jay had airplanes forever. They would fly to Chicago. They flew to the Grand Canyon," she said.

Moffitt said the father owned a hangar at the subdivision's airstrip and that the men were flying back to Florida from California but that circumstances of the crash aren't known.

"I'll be honest. I had, I was so confident in their abilities as pilots, I didn't even ask him what hotel they were going to stay at," said Terri.

Moffit said the crash was discovered when a subdivision resident returned home and saw damage to his residence before finding the plane wreckage next to it.

The Federal Aviation Administration said it and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.

Randall was a professor at Embry Riddle and a science teacher at Father Lopez High School.

Associated Press