American pilot at the age of seven, aiming to be the youngest pilot to cross the U.S. when she crashed in Cheyenne, WY 4/11/96, killing her, her dad and flight instructor Joe Reid. Her Cessna Cardinal was fitted with extensions for her feet to reach the pedals and a booster seat. It was overloaded and the weather was bad. When they took off at 8:23 AM, the plane seemed to struggle, falter, and fall.
Jessica had an unconventional upbringing with “New-Age” type parents who were separated but both full-time and caring. She had not been to school but was tutored at home, no TV or kid’s toys or books, a vegetarian, taught to forge her own way and reach for the stars. Jessica began flying lessons in January, 1986 and had logged 35 hours when she began her planned flight from Half Moon Bay, CA to Falmouth, MA.
The record of coast-to-coast flight by a kid had last been set in 1988, the year of Jessica’s birth, by nine-year-old Tommy Aliena in a national flight. The crash had a great deal of bad publicity from people who thought that the parents acted irresponsibly in encouraging the little girl to pursue an ambition that seemed more adult than child-like. Her mother responded that she was “following her bliss.”
Her family’s grief may have been alleviated somewhat by the $3 million life insurance policy that her dad took out that was divided evenly between her mother and step-mother.
Link to Wikipedia biography