I am Michael's fiance. We were just returning from dinner when this
accident happened. He had on every bit of protective gear on. He
simply could not sustain the injuries that he had. He died of
internal injuries. I had always known I would be in the emergency
room for this man, I just had hoped I was going to be taking him home
in whatever shape he came in. I know that Michael would have rather
died doing something that he loved then dying in bed. I wished he
would have been around for longer. We had just moved up to Michigan,
and were settling in up here. He was excited about being at the
Benton Harbor airport. He was having Thomas Isakson come from Sweden
for additional flight lessons on Friday. I believe Thomas sought out
Michael a few years back from having read his postings online.

For anyone wanting to do any type of tribute page I would love to
contribute anything that I could for this. Michael had an amazing
life history, and an amazing story. While I am highly biased since he
was the man that I loved and adored his patents, his charity work for
Angel Flight, and contributions to the flight community as well as the
usenet group are something that I wished I could capture. I know he
had a wonderfully rich and diverse life that I wished could be
captured. I know he his contributions to the usenet community are
something he thought were important. He wanted to let me know he had
plenty of "Geek-Cred".

Unfortunately I do not know everyone in the flight community and have
no way of letting everyone know about his passing. The Benton Harbor
airport folks have offered to do a local memorial for him. I am going
to try to get that set up for the weekend after July 4th. I will post
details once I get them. I know I and he would be deeply honored if
anyone could come to this. Unfortunately I will be attending his
funeral, and honestly this isn't the way he would want to be
remembered. He would want to be remembered at an airport. If you are
in the Houston area, Saturday night there will be a celebration for
him at Wieser airport. I know Michael would feel the best way you
could honor him is to enjoy a drink or two and speak about aviation.

Stephanie