Tragedy tests thankfulness

This Thanksgiving week was one to try the community’s ability to give thanks.

Family and friends of Jason Baldwin and Dan Neuman were stunned and grief-stricken by their deaths, along with two others, in a small plane crash into deep coastal waters Nov. 19. They, and their aircraft, have at last been brought to shore, and the process of determining how such a tragedy could happen will commence.

We know thus far that Neuman, the 51-year-old pilot of the single-engine, fixed-wing Cessna 210, did not suffer a medical emergency that caused the crash. More details will help solve the mystery but not salve the hurt, especially for Neuman’s wife, children, friends and students at Orange Coast College. Neuman had taught at OCC since 1988.

The 36-year-old Baldwin, who grew up in Laguna Beach and now was a real estate developer in Newport, had invited his passengers to Baja California for the Baja 1000, an off-road race he competed in. Baldwin loved a thrill, friends said.

We share the community’s sadness at this loss. It is almost beyond comprehension that lives of such promise and such pleasure can be lost so instantaneously, and yet it has happened.

That it happened during a week when our thoughts are turned toward thanks and thanksgiving seems especially cruel. But a day will come, we are certain and we deeply hope, when the family and friends of Jason Baldwin and Dan Neuman and the other two on the plane, Jeff TenEyck and Rick Olavson, will be able to answer the question, “What is there to be thankful for?” And that their answer will be the memories of their loved ones and the time they had together.