Jet's pilots, each engaged, shared a passion for flying

The two pilots were from different backgrounds, different decades, different coasts.

But Daniel M. D'Ambrosio and Clark J. Keefer -- who were at the controls on the fatal flight to Owatonna Thursday -- shared a few things in common. Both loved to fly, and both were engaged to be married.

D'Ambrosio, 27, was set to wed Niki Cox in December. Keefer, 40, had proposed so recently that his parents found out the news just days before his death.

"To have it happen like this, when they were looking forward to so many things, is tragic," said Cox's eldest sister, Tara Young.

For their first date, in 2005, D'Ambrosio flew Cox to Atlantic City.

From there, the two fell into "crazy, kooky, wild love," Young said.

Cox last heard from D'Ambrosio, a Hellertown, Pa., resident, Thursday morning, when his plane touched down in New Jersey before going on to Owatonna.

Passion for speed

Keefer and his fiancée, Jennifer McDonald, had been dating for at least a year, said his father, William Keefer, 63, who lives in Vancouver, Wash., where his son grew up.

Keefer always had a thing for getting behind a wheel, his father recalled. First it was go-carts. Then race cars, motorcycles, airplanes.

"Piloting is a very special thing -- a freedom we don't normally get," his father said. "He just loved that."

Keefer decided to become a pilot at age 30, after working as a paramedic and, before that, as a race car instructor.

Starting young

D'Ambrosio took his first flight at the age of 15 or 16, said his mother, Marcia D'Ambrosio, 59, who lives in Allentown.

"From then on, he was going to fly," she said.

He flew for another company for a few years after graduating from West Virginia University, then was hired by East Coast Jets in October 2007, his mother said.

"That was his dream. He didn't want to deal with the airlines," his mother said. "This charter operation allowed him to fly and get right back home" to see his fiancée.