Newlyweds Killed In Crash Of Bonanza

Killed in the crash were Costas John Sivyllis, 30, a pilot at United Airlines, and Lindsey Vogelaar, 33, who was a flight attendant at United. The Bonanza crashed in high terrain in the Rockies. The NTSB is investigating, but reports are that the safety board will not be sending investigators to the scene because of the pandemic.

Vogelaar and Sivyllis had met overseas on a stopover on a flight they were both working. They fell in love and planned to get married. As it has for so many over the past many months, their wedding plans were upended by the coronavirus pandemic. According to a news outlet in Michigan, where Vogelaar's family lives, the couple, who lived in Port Orange, Florida, had been planning a big destination wedding but decided not to wait and eloped, marrying in Telluride just four days before the fatal crash. Their plan, say family members, was to honeymoon via small plane, a plan that was tragically cut short.

While it might take as long as two years for the NTSB to publish a final report on the crash, again, because of the Covid-19 pandemic, it will likely be looking into whether the plane flew into a canyon with steeply rising terrain and was unable to outclimb the terrain, which is a common cause of accidents in the mountains. And the pass in which the plane went down, Black Bear Pass, is one of the most notorious in the United States. The wreckage was located at an elevation of approximately 10,000 feet. Black Bear Pass rises to nearly 13,000 feet.

Plans for memorial services are still being made, though they too are complicated by the national health crisis.