Second victim identified in Lake County midair crash

<p>Two men who died in a mid-air collision near Middletown were both veteran pilots who knew each other and died doing what they loved.</p><p>Lake County sheriff’s officials Monday identified the veteran pilots as Robert “Sean” Boylan, 44, of Hidden Valley Lake and Harold Harvey Chouinard, 63, of Cotati.</p><p>Family members Sunday confirmed that Chouinard, a Cotati businessman and Cardinal Newman High School board member, had been killed in Saturday’s crash near Middletown.</p><p>Boylan, too, had deep ties to Sonoma County. He was born in the county and raised in Petaluma. He and his wife, Leona, and their family lived in the county for years before moving to Lake County in 1992.</p><p>The couple recently merged their Petaluma drilling business with one in Santa Rosa and were business partners in the gliderport, Crazy Creek Air Adventures, where the crash occurred.</p><p>Boylan’s family Monday remembered him as a hard-working, hard-playing man who loved flying with a passion. He earned his pilot’s license in 1989 and flew single-engine and multi-engine planes. </p><p>“It was something he truly lived to do,” said Mark Basque, a Santa Rosa Fire battalion chief and cousin of Boylan’s.</p><p>“He loved flying,” said his wife, Leona Boylan. “Last week we were talking about death. He said ‘If I die I hope I die flying or diving or something I love.’ He died doing something he loved. He didn’t suffer.”</p><p>Boylan said she was grateful for the time they had together.</p><p>“We had 25 years. Not everyone gets that,” she said.</p><p>Aircraft safety officials Monday continued to investigate the crash between Chouinard’s glider and Boylan’s tow plane.</p><p>The crash occurred at about 11:40 a.m. Saturday, soon after Boylan pulled the glider into the sky and Chouinard released the tow line.</p><p>Both pilots reportedly had radioed they were returning to land. Boylan was making the routine flight pattern to land, said his wife. </p><p>Chouinard decided to land right away as well, most likely due to strong winds.</p><p>They approached from two different directions and witnesses speculated that they didn’t see each other, collided and crashed to the ground. The wreckage was removed from the crash site Monday afternoon.</p><p>Boylan’s longtime business partner at the gliderport, Jim Indrebo, said he had known Boylan for 15 or 20 years.</p><p>“He was good at all kinds of things, he worked a lot on the property,” Indrebo said. “He was a great pilot, a very fine young man.”</p><p>But Boylan also was known for his passion for his family as well as playing rugby in Petaluma and Santa Rosa, abalone diving and surfing, said his wife.</p><p>“He was a thoughtful guy. One of those people who could figure out anything. He was a really good teacher,” Leona Boylan said. “He played hard and worked hard and he loved hard. He always gave 110 percent.”</p><p>Boylan would often commute by plane to their business in Petaluma and he spent many Saturdays at the gliderport, often towing gliders into the sky, she said.</p><p>“He did that pull so many times,” she said. “It’s just so sad,” she said. “They knew each other.”</p><p>The couple have two grown daughters, Seana, 23, Jessica, 18, and a granddaughter, Kayla, 3.</p><p>Sean Boylan also is survived by his mother, Marie Boylan of Petaluma and father Robert Boylan of Novato.</p><p>A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Dec. 19, at the Crazy Creek Gliderport.</p><p>Chouinard owned Chouinard & Myhre, a Cotati firm that designs and supports computer software systems. He was a strong supporter of Cardinal Newman High and a member of the school’s board.</p><p>Chouinard’s son, Tom Chouinard, Sunday said his father was “an extremely prepared pilot, he always took safety precautions. It was just a freak accident.”</p><p>Autopsies will be conducted on each man, Lake County Sheriff’s Capt. Jim Bauman said.</p><p>Crazy Creek Air Adventures is a gliderport near Middletown. It is a long-standing business, first started decades ago in Calistoga by Indrebo.</p>