An Arizona family was left devastated after a father of two and grandfather of one died in a freak accident when a small plane crashed into their car.
Ray Longhi, 67, was headed to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to pick up his 35-year-old wife from work Tuesday when a small Honda jet collided with his red Lexus on Greenfield Road, just a few miles from their home. AZ Family Reports.
The irony, his daughter said, is that her father was an avid traveler who loved aviation. He even took a job at Boeing and moved with his family to a house adjacent to Falcon Field airport in Mesa, according to ABC 15.
“I’ve driven down the street hundreds of times and a lot of them were with my dad,” his daughter, Lorraine, told the station.
“Planes or helicopters would fly overhead as we drove down the road and my father knew everything about what model plane it was.”
Ray Longhi, 67, died in a freak accident on Tuesday when a small plane crashed into his car.
He was headed to Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport to pick up his 35-year-old wife from work when a small Honda jet collided with his red Lexus on Greenfield Road, just a few miles from their home.
He said he is now struggling to understand what happened.
“When I heard it was an accident, I think I just assumed it was a car accident, but when I found out there was a plane involved, I think it was very difficult to understand,” Lorraine said.
“I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that my father could have a plane crash next to the same airport he had been living at for decades.
“It was impossible for me to imagine that something like this could happen a kilometer from home,” he added.
Witnesses to the crash told police that a multimillion-dollar airliner never left the ground at Falcon Field after attempting to take off around 4:45 p.m. Tuesday. Arizona Republic Reports.
After the plane hit Longhi’s vehicle, it crashed into an orchard where it burst into flames.
Four people aboard the plane were also pronounced dead in the crash: Drew Kimball, 44, Grahm Kimball, 12, Spencer Lindahl, 43, and Rustin Randall, 48. A teenager on board suffered burns but survived.
“My family and I want answers about what happened,” Lorraine said.
‘My family is devastated. We are angry. We are confused. This shouldn’t have happened.”
Lorraine Longhi, his daughter, now demands answers about the fatal accident
Witnesses to the crash told police that a multimillion-dollar airliner never left the ground at Falcon Field after attempting to take off around 4:45 p.m.
He said his father had plans for the future when he was killed.
“My dad had more life to live,” Lorraine said, adding that he wanted to spend more time with her and her brother, along with his wife and one-year-old grandson.
‘He had things he still wanted to do, that we still wanted to do with him.
“It’s so unfair and so absurd,” she said of the accident, “but at the same time, I know my father wouldn’t want us to think about it and sit in despair.”
She described her father in interviews as “larger than life,” recounting how he was adopted as a baby into an Italian-American family in Yonkers, New York, and studied English for two years at the University of Arizona before transferring to the University. from California. Berkeley.
Ray eventually traveled to Taiwan, where he met Ada Tsai, now 64 years old. The two married in 1989 and started a family, but kept their adventurous spirit alive.
‘There were weekends growing up when my parents would shake me awake and just say, “Hey, do you want to go to this new city today?” You know, just because we could,’ Lorraine told the Republic.
Ray met Ada Tsai while traveling in Taiwan and the two married in 1989.
Lorraine said her parents kept her adventurous spirit alive, taking her and her brother on weekend trips to different cities.
She said her father “was so loving and so full of life,” and noted that he had texted her just before the accident, asking, “Is everything okay?”
Lorraine said it was something her father often asked her.
“I’m realizing that my father didn’t just ask if people were okay,” he said. “It was his way of saying he loved them, and I’m so glad we had a conversation moments before it happened.”
“And I think he was, you know, taking that path knowing that he was doing what he always did, which was taking care of his family,” she said, calling her father her hero.
“There was more to my father than the way he died,” Lorraine insisted to ABC 15. “The way he lived was the most special thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
The Longhis are now asking anyone who wants to support their family to make a donation to the Sunshine Acres Children’s Home in Mesa, and urge everyone “to take a minute to hug your dad or your kids.”
