By Ian Brown, Editor, Bits and Pieces; EAA 657491; Member, EAA Canadian Council

I just spent the last few days learning about the recent aviation accident in which someone many of you may have met at AirVenture in the last few years, lost his life, along with that of his instructor. His name is Steve Zago and with his long-term friend, Adam Wright, he told me at AirVenture a couple of years ago, that they had been limited by the Covid pause, and its reduction in passenger volume, from flying regularly for an airline and had founded Lost Aviator Coffee in their hometown of Guelph, Ontario. Although they had begun flying regularly again, they also used their spare time to keep Lost Aviator Coffee growing. If you check out their website here, you would be able to learn all about this tragic loss of such a great person.

Since you can find a lot about him on the website and on the internet in general, I thought that I would just add a bit of personal stuff you might like to hear about his time at AirVenture. In fact, both Steve and Adam seemed to love coming to AirVenture and generously donating not only coffee for the visitors, but by showing a huge interest in everything.

They were very generous with their gifts of bags of coffee for all the volunteers at the Canadian tent and gave us all our choice. Since I learned to fly, and got my PPL and night certification in Guelph, it hits pretty close to home to learn that the accident occurred in  Fergus and that Steve first fell in love with flying in Guelph, too.

I’m sure I speak for many of you when I say to all his friends and family that we are thinking about you and send our most sincere thoughts at such a sad time for all.