Community members in Middletown, Connecticut, are grappling with the loss of four community members, including a teenager aspiring to be a pilot, her mother and her teacher, who died in a plane crash in Ferrisburgh on Sunday.
Vermont State Police identified the four victims from Connecticut on Monday as Paul Pelletier, 55, of Columbia; Frank Rodriguez, 88, of Lebanon; and Susan Van Ness, 51, and Delilah Van Ness, 15, both of Middletown.
Pelletier, a pilot, was an aerospace and manufacturing teacher at Middletown High School. Delilah, who was taking flying lessons from Pelletier, was his student and a sophomore at the school. Her mother, Susan, was an active community member who worked for the National Diaper Bank Network. Rodriguez was a friend of the group.
In a press conference on Tuesday, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board did not identify who was flying the plane at the time of the crash. The group flew from Connecticut to Basin Harbor airstrip on Sunday morning and departed a few hours later, around 12:25 p.m. State and local police located the wreckage just after midnight on Monday.
An investigation is underway by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Rodriguez was “like the senior statesman for Lebanon,” a local elected official, Kevin Cwikla, told CT Insider. “He was the kind of guy, if you needed something, he was always there and he’d try to help you.”
“This unimaginable loss has left a void in our hearts and our community,” Middletown Public Schools superintendent Alberto Vázquez Matos wrote in a letter to the community on Monday. “Paul, Delilah, and Susan were special individuals. Their absence will be felt in our classrooms, hallways, and throughout our district and city.”
Pelletier had been a “dedicated” teacher at the school since 2019, Matos wrote. He also led a summer program where high school students teach first responders how to fly drones.
“Paul is an advocate and enthusiast for drones, anything aviation,” David Albert, Middletown’s deputy fire chief, told VTDigger in an interview on Tuesday, still speaking of him in the present tense.
Albert described Pelletier as a friend and a “humble, positive, influential person,” who “was a wealth of knowledge.” He said he met Pelletier when the teacher reached out to the fire department a few years ago, intending to host the two-week, 80-hour course for first responders. The program, which is part of the school’s drone and flight sciences class, hosted its second round of trainees this summer.
Albert said six of his responders received certification after attending the training course. Pelletier then helped the department choose a drone to purchase and assisted with flight procedures, he said. The fire department now has a comprehensive drone with speakers and thermal cameras.
Albert said the department’s drone training “helped us make some pretty tough decisions on fire scenes,” allowing first responders to see situations from above.
Vermont state and local police also used a thermal drone to locate the crash site over the weekend.
In June, Pelletier and Delilah were featured in a story about the program on Fox 61, a local TV news station.
“The kids grew up with video games, and so the kids just have a natural ability to fly the drones,” Pelletier told the station. “They’re the best ones to impart it to the first responders.”
Delilah, a teacher in the program, was described by the reporter as a “rising sophomore grounded by the data.”
“I do the classroom part, so I’m more of the information side,” she said during the training. “And then we grade them so they know how they’re doing and what they need to work on.”
“It’s win, win,” Pelletier told the station. “When you can get the kids and the first responders and everybody’s learning, I think that’s what education is supposed to be all about.”
Luis Revilla, owner of Revilla Films, has been working with Pelletier for two years to produce a series of 19 drone safety videos for the Federal Aviation Administration. None of the videos have been released to the public yet, Revilla said, but the final episode highlights Delilah’s journey to take the FAA Part 107 exam, a certification to become a remote drone pilot.
Delilah interviewed superintendent Matos, a pilot and a nutritionist, who gave her advice on test-taking strategies and healthy eating before taking the exam. Delilah passed the test, Revilla said, and he shot a scene of her leaving the testing center.
The final episode was scheduled to premiere at Middletown High School on Friday, but the event has been postponed.
“She was very active in the program doing the flight simulator and helping other students,” Revilla said of Delilah.
In his letter, Matos described her as a “bright and cherished student who had been part of our Middletown school family since her elementary years.”
Revilla traveled with Pelletier and Delilah documenting her journey.
“(He) offered to give her free, private flight lessons,” Revilla said. “Paul saw Delilah as his daughter. He made a really good connection with her.”
Revilla said it was common for Pelletier to give Delilah short flying lessons, like the trip they took to Vermont over the weekend. The pair would travel with Rodriguez, a friend of Pelletier, and Susan, Delilah’s mother.
Susan Van Ness worked at the National Diaper Bank Network, a New Haven-based organization that works to address diaper needs and period poverty in the United States. She had worked there for just over 10 years.
“All of us at NDBN, are shocked and saddened by this tragedy,” CEO Joanne Samuel Goldblum said in a statement. “Susan has impacted the lives of so many people and made an indelible imprint on our Network. We are where we are today because of her leadership and vision. She is our colleague, our friend and our family. She will remain with us always.”
Revilla said he spoke to Pelletier last week, and they discussed the impact they hope their videos will have on students.
“If we can get a tear out of at least one of them, we nailed it,” Revilla said Pelletier told him.
Now, in light of the crash this weekend, the episode’s premiere will serve as a tribute to Pelletier and Delilah.
“We will bring a tear, not only from one person, but from many people,” Revilla said. He hopes people will see the passion Pelletier had for his work and students.
“He was more than a client I had, he was a mentor,” Revilla said. “I want them to see that. Paul was a very caring person.”
Correction: A photo caption misspelled Paul Pelletier’s last name.
