The irony of Irv Lewandowski’s death last November probably did not go unnoticed by his two close friends, Jack Rodgers and Robert Knoll.
The three of them loved airplanes so much that, together, they had created the Chicago area’s first vintage aviation museum. Then Lewandowski died in the air: he was a passenger on a commercial airplane when he suffered a heart attack.
On Tuesday night, the two surviving friends also met their death in an airplane. Authorities on Wednesday identified Rodgers and Knoll as the men who died in a plane crash at the DuPage Airport in West Chicago.
“I’m still a little numb from the shock of it,” said Mike Keenum, chairman of the board of trustees for the Air Classics Museum, which was founded in Kane County in 1990 and moved to the DuPage Airport more than two years ago.
Rodgers, 53, of Huntley, and Lewandowski, 46, of Inverness, were successful businessmen who financed the young museum, Keenum said. Knoll, 52, of Palatine, an airplane mechanic who volunteered many hours for the museum, was one of the museum’s original directors, he said.
While Rodgers and Lewandowski officially are recognized as the museum’s founders, Keenum said Knoll also played a crucial role in creating the museum.
“Those were the three major players,” Keenum said. “They wanted to do something that would go beyond their time. Obviously, none of them realized their time would be so short. They wanted something that would last.”
Investigators from the National Transportation and Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration, and Pratt & Whitney Engines spent Wednesday examining the wreckage of the World War II-era McKinnon G-21G Goose that went down in a ditch near a runway about a half-mile west of the museum.
It is unclear who was piloting the craft, said Carl Dinwiddie, NTSB regional director. The pilots were practicing takeoffs and landings and were in the midst of a full takeoff when the accident occurred.
Shortly after takeoff, the plane turned to its left and headed nose-first into the ground, where it burst into flames.
On Wednesday morning, the tail of the plane was visible above the edge of the ditch.
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Investigators plan to talk Thursday to air traffic controllers who have a tape recording of the pilot’s radio transmission at the time of the crash, Dinwiddie said. Investigators also hope to interview about a dozen witnesses.
Dinwiddie declined to speculate about the cause of the crash. The investigation probably will take about six months, he said, and only then will the NTSB issue its findings.
The most recent previous fatal crash at the DuPage Airport occurred in autumn 1991, when two died in a crash of a single airplane approaching the airport from the east, according to Brian Kulpin, airport spokesman. The airport had 187,000 takeoffs and landings last year, Kulpin said, making it the third-busiest airport in Illinois after O’Hare and Midway in Chicago.
The airplane that Rodgers and Knoll were flying was one of 345 so-called Goose aircraft built between 1937 and 1945. The amphibian airplane originally was designed to carry wealthy New York financiers from their outlying homes to work, according to H.G. Frautschy, editor of Vintage Airplane, official magazine of the antique/classic division of the Oshkosh, Wis.-based Experimental Aircraft Association.
But the Goose was so versatile that it soon became popular with the U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard. “It’s considered one of the stongest airplanes ever built,” Frautschy said.
There are 64 Goose aircraft still registered with the FAA, he said. The one that Rodgers and Knoll were in was one of seven that had been modified to be powered with Pratt & Whitney PT-6 turboprop engines, which run on jet fuel.
Rodgers had owned his Goose along with Lewandowski. Recently, twin turbo-prop engines had been installed on the plane, according to Dinwiddie. The Pratt & Whitney engines had about 3,000 flight hours, Dinwiddie said, which would not be considered old.
Rodgers, a principal with Rodgers Engineering in Addison, had a reputation as a safe flier.
“He was a very methodical and safe pilot,” said Renee Riani, a pilot and flight instructor at DuPage Airport and a museum volunteer. “He was always lecturing other pilots on being safe.”
Rodgers recently had achieved the necessary certification to land his airplane on water, Riani said.
Despite the deaths of the three men who created the museum, Keenum said the museum will continue to operate. The non-profit museum is headed by a 10-member board of trustees, he said.
The deaths come at a time when the museum is preparing for its first large-scale event, the “Ultimate Show of Motion,” scheduled for July 22-23 and expected to attract more than 60,000 people, Keenum said.
The show will be a gathering of planes, trains and automobiles, with more than 200 vintage cars, original steam locomotives, boats and aircraft, Keenum said. The event will not be canceled.
“For this to happen now is difficult for us,” Keenum said. “It’s very unfortunate that the gentlemen who were responsible for getting this going won’t be here to see it become the ultimate success that I know it will become.”