JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Married for 29 years, Minerva Dyer said her husband Robert Dyer, a welder for many years, loved to spend time gardening and in the air.
“He was a skydiver instructor at one time before he hurt his back,” she said.
On Sunday morning, the couple woke up early because Robert Dyer was eager to fly his new ultralight aircraft for the first time. He had flown one before, but not this one.
“I bought it for him because he always wanted one since he was a teenager,” Minerva Dyer said. “He always told me ‘I didn’t think I would ever have one’ and I said to him ‘Well, you’re getting one whether you want it or not, I am getting you one.’ He was so happy about that.”
Then on that Sunday morning, tragedy struck.
“He made a loop around the airport and the second loop, after the half-loop it started sputtering, so I knew he was having a problem. There was something going on up there and the next thing I knew he went downhill,” she said.
When first responders arrived at Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport shortly before 7 a.m., they learned the Aerolite 103 ultralight aircraft crashed shortly after taking off and 61-year-old Robert Dyer died in the crash.
Before he took off on that flight, Minerva Dyer said she gave her husband a kiss and told him she loved him.
“The last thing he told me was I might not come back down like he knew it was his time,” Minerva Dyer said.
She said although her husband is gone, she knows he is still with her.
“I think it hasn’t dawned onto me yet that he’s gone for good,” she said. “I am trying to deal with it the best I can. It’s hard, it gets harder every day and I have only lost him three or four days now. It gets harder every day. I am just going to miss him a lot, I really am.”
Minerva Dyer said she wanted to make sure Robert was safe when flying the aircraft so she paid extra for a parachute, but she said it never deployed.
Along with his wife, Robert Dyer leaves behind one son and two stepchildren.
And it’s not the first time tragedy has hit the family.
Less than a year ago, Minerva Dyer lost one of her sons.
