He loved to fly, stating the only hard thing about flying was missing the coyotes on the runway. He stated he must have been born with wings that never grew, because he felt he belonged in the sky. "What a wondrous thing that man can help his fellow man by flying them quickly to reach the best in medical care," Brandon once said.<br />
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Brandon Bow, 31, of Dallas, Texas, died on February 17, 2004 when the twin-engine air ambulance he was piloting fell from the sky and crashed to the ground covering over a mile with burning debris. Mr. Bow was an experienced pilot with 13 years of flying on record. The plane, a 1968 Beech King Air B90, with Bow as its pilot, departed from Wichita Mid-Continent Airport and crashed about 10 miles west of Dodge City. The pilot, and crew of two medical staff, had earlier made a medical transport and were returning to home base when the crash happened. There were no survivors.<br />
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Mr. Bow volunteered with the well-known agency of Big Brothers/Big Sisters program and had mentored the same child for 10 years. Friend McLaughlin stated, "I remember when Bow spent an entire day and a half creating crayon drawings to put up around the watch house." Another friend remembered Bow as saying the darnedest things just to make you laugh, or to make you think.<br />
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The EagleMed Flight Team filed into the memorial in pairs. They had come to honor and bid farewell to their friends. They wore their flight jumpsuits of maroon and navy, each of them wore a black armband, and they all wore a somber look, witness that they had lost part of their family.<br />
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Honored 2005 |