Pilot, 73, dies doing what she loved to do

Topsfield woman sought adventure

The motorcycle-riding, 73-year-old amateur pilot waited for about an hour for fog to clear Saturday before she took off on a solo flight from the county airport in Owls Head, Maine.

Minutes later, Janet Strong crashed the plane into shallow water by the beach, about a half-mile from her takeoff, where witnesses said the visibility was still quite poor. Strong, from Topsfield, died in the crash.

The retired postal clerk had been flying planes since the 1960s, according to an airport official and her family. Fellow pilots knew when she was in the air because her distinctive gravely voice would report her position on the pilots' radio frequency, said Jeffrey Northgraves, manager of the Knox County Regional Airport. When she wasn't flying, or on a motorcycle, or chauffeuring people to the airport to raise money for charity, she was playing touch football with her seven grandchildren.

"She just had a flare for adventure and also machines," said Geoffrey May of Topsfield, her son-in-law.

In the summers, she spent some of her time in a cabin in Maine, near a general aviation airport in Owls Head, so she could fly, he said. Saturday morning, she took off in a single-engine Piper Cherokee that belonged to the local flying club, Northgraves said. She was practicing her takeoff and landing skills, something she did regularly, Northgraves said.

Though she waited for the fog to pass before taking off, it remained thick over the nearby water, and witnesses saw her fly into it, he said.

She crashed shortly before 11 a.m. The cause is under investigation, Northgraves said. National Transportation Safety Board investigators are expected to arrive at Owls Head today, he said.

The fog was so thick that US Coast Guard boats dispatched to the area could not see anything for a half-hour, though other rescue crews made it to the shallow crash site almost immediately, said Petty Officer Stephen Leadbetter, whose unit was called to help the search and rescue effort.

As crews continued pulling wreckage from the beach yesterday, members of the small Owls Head flying community mourned. "Everybody who had met her, that is exactly what they said, that she was a pretty neat lady and not your stereotypical 70-year-old," Northgraves said.

Strong grew up in the Chicago suburbs, one of seven children, and was "a traditional Midwestern woman in many ways," May said. To a point. She would wear a red bandana and plain brown Levi corduroy pants when she rode her Honda motorcycle, the "Black Beauty," around town.

She liked to ski - she had conquered the Alps. She liked to run - she finished a marathon. She liked to play cards, tennis, softball, golf, basketball, or anything else that involved a game, May said. She would join local leagues, run in the 5k race, charge through the 20-mile Walk for Hunger every year.

"She was a pleasure to play tennis with, because she was always certain we would win," said Alison D'Amario, a friend for the last 40 years.

Strong flew D'Amario's 90-year-old mother on a plane trip around Nantucket a few years ago: "She couldn't see any reason not to do something that seemed like fun and a challenge," she said.

Strong came to New England in the 1960s, moving to Hartford to be near one of her sisters. She took a job at an insurance firm, met the man who would become her husband, James, then moved to Topsfield in the late 1960s, May said. She later took a job as a post office clerk and met nearly everyone in town before she retired eight or nine years ago. Along the way, she took an interest in cars, motorcycles, airplanes, and even skydiving for her 40th birthday, a feat written up in the local newspaper, May said.

Strong had two daughters - Jane Strong May and Ann O'Connor, both of Topsfield. She and her husband divorced in 1979.

Even after retirement a few years ago, Strong could not sit still. She took a part-time job driving locals to and from Logan Airport, donating half her salary to local charity, Jane May said.

"She looked at life like, 'You have two arms and two legs . . . nothing to complain about,' " May said. " 'Let's go get 'em.' "

Noah Bierman can be reached at nbierman@globe.com.