Valujet Captain A Flier First -- But Few Women Are Airline Pilots

Candalyn Kubeck would never have wanted to be remembered this way.

An avid flier whose grandfather piloted biplanes, she began taking lessons as a teenager, eventually logging nearly 9,000 hours in the air. By the time she was hired by ValuJet in 1993, she believed that her accomplishments spoke for themselves, despite the fact that she was among the 2.5 percent of commercial pilots who just happen not to be male.

"I don't think she ever mentioned that she was a woman pilot," said Ken Peery, a neighbor in Dallas, where the Phoenix resident kept a work-week apartment.

But as divers search for bodies amid the wreckage of ValuJet Flight 592, which nose-dived into the Florida Everglades on Saturday, its pilot is being counted as more than just one of the 109 victims. Candi Kubeck belonged to a small club, whose members have had to scale great heights before ever reaching a jet cockpit.

Of more than 117,000 U.S. commerical pilots, only about 3,000 are female, said Loretta Gragg, director of the International Organization of Women Pilots.

Kubeck had worked for a series of small commuter carriers before finally earning her captain's wings at ValuJet.

For a female pilot to make that leap, "you have to be better than the rest," Gragg said.

Kubeck, 35, believed to be the first woman commercial jetliner captain to perish in a U.S. crash, was "very experienced, very well-trained, very competent," ValuJet President Lewis Jordan said.

As a girl, Kubeck watched military planes fly over her childhood home near San Diego. She vowed that she would take to the skies, just like her grandfather in World War I and her uncles in Vietnam.

But she didn't love flying enough to take chances, her husband said yesterday "She would have everything checked out," said Roger Kubeck.

Candi Kubeck studied aviation at Metropolitan State College in Denver, where she challenged nearby Air Force Academy cadets to a flying contest. She amassed hours as a flight instructor, and even worked as an air-traffic controller in El Paso, Texas.

In 1989, she crossed picket lines at Eastern Airlines. It put her in a major airline cockpit for the first time but earned her the lasting enmity of some fellow pilots.

"She'd taken a lot of flak for her crossing the line, but I'll tell you what, she loved that job," her husband said.

Information from Associated Press is included in this report.