Edward L’Hommedieu of North Yarmouth, the pilot who was killed in Sunday’s plane crash in Biddeford, earned his pilot’s license as a teenager — before he got his driver’s license — and went on to earn two Distinguished Flying Crosses in the Air Force.
He spent 20 years in the Air Force, encompassing the Vietnam era, before holding several jobs in private aviation, including running his own small airline, operating airports and serving as dean of a British aeronautics school.
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At 71, L’Hommedieu was still ferrying aircraft around the world. He was returning to Portland after completing a job for a family from Nantucket when he crashed.
“He didn’t need the money. He just loved to fly and he’d fly anywhere in anything,” said his son E. Christopher L’Hommedieu, an attorney in Lewiston.
He said he believes, based on witness reports that have been described to him, that one of the two engines on the Cessna 402 stopped working as his father came in for a landing. His father restarted the engine, but not in time to compensate for the loss of power and the change in aerodynamics.
Losing an engine isn’t uncommon, said Christopher L’Hommedieu. “If you’re at 5,000 or 6,000 feet, no problem,” but at 500 feet approaching the runway, there is little time to react, he said.
The plane severed trees as big as 8 inches in diameter before crashing into a house and catching fire, say investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash. The investigator planned to complete his work at the Biddeford Municipal Airport today and continue the analysis back in Washington, D.C.
Maine’s medical examiner was unable to confirm L’Hommedieu’s identity until Wednesday, once DNA comparisons were done, though word of L’Hommedieu’s death had spread through the aviation community.
L’Hommedieu had been hooked on flying since he was a boy, his son said.
“He grew up on Long Island, and as a kid, he got to ride his bike around what was starting to become JFK” airport, his son said.
He joined the Air Force in 1964 and flew B-52s, and later, FB-111s. He was a master navigator, a flight instructor and chief of operations and maintenance.
On Dec. 28, 1972, he was the lead bombardier on what was “one of the most massive air strikes in the history of the Strategic Air Command,” according to the citation accompanying his Distinguished Flying Cross.
“Despite intensive electronic jamming, (Capt. L’Hommedieu) was able to accomplish a synchronous bomb run, delivering the weapons on the assigned target” near Hanoi, North Vietnam, the citation read.
He also received 12 Air Medals, the Cross of Gallantry and the Meritorious Service Medal, according to his resume.
During the war in Vietnam, L’Hommedieu brought his family to Thailand.
“It was pretty unusual. Nobody really brought their family with them,” his son said. He was able to kiss his children good night before going on bombing missions, his son said.
After he retired from the Air Force in 1984, he became dean at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Great Britain. Later, he started and ran Dolphin Airlines, a small airline in the U.S. Virgin Islands, until back-to-back hurricanes badly damaged the islands and forced the airline to shut down, his son said.
Afterward, he delivered planes all over the world. Once, he delivered a small private plane to a senator in Liberia, who decided that his pilots weren’t skilled enough for the aircraft. The senator had L’Hommedieu’s passport confiscated and ordered him to be his pilot.
“He had to sneak out on a British Airways flight and escape Liberia,” his son said.
His daughter Heather settled in Maine, as did Christopher. Edward L’Hommedieu followed, for the chance to spend time with his three grandchildren.
Christopher L’Hommedieu described his father as jovial and unassuming.
“He loved to tell stories,” he said. “He just always had a pile of stories to tell about his trips.”
Staff Writer David Hench can be contacted at 791-6327 or at:
dhench@pressherald.com
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