UW Grad Loses Life Pursuing A Dream -- Navy Pilot, 4 Others Die Monitoring Bosnia Aid

Flying was a lifelong dream for a University of Washington graduate who was among five crewmen killed when their Navy plane crashed after monitoring relief-supply drops into Bosnia-Herzegovina, his parents said yesterday.

"He was very determined. . . . He went after his dream and he was happy," said Alice Messier of Bellevue, mother of Lt. John Messier. "That's good advice for anyone."

Lt. Messier, 30, and four other crewman died Friday when their radar plane crashed into international waters off Italy as it returned to the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. Cause of the crash is under investigation.

According to The Associated Press, the twin-engine E-2C Hawkeye went down a mile from the carrier in the Ionian Sea east of Crotone, Italy. The plane had been monitoring nightly C-130 air drops of humanitarian relief supplies into war-ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Alice and Raymond Messier said their son had just left for the six-month sea duty from his Norfolk, Va., home where he lived with his wife of 1 1/2 years, Shelley.

The sixth of seven children, Messier was athletic and fun-loving, his parents said. He graduated from Sammamish High School, where he was a wrestler and football player.

Messier earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1986 from the University of Washington, where he was a member of the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.

His mother recalled when he first decided to pursue his lifelong dream of flying.

After a year of working with his brother in construction, he came home one day and announced to his mother that she shouldn't try to dissuade him - he had signed up with the Navy earlier that day.

A Navy pilot for almost four years, Messier had 48 Desert Storm missions to his credit, said his father.

After that war, he stayed in the Middle East to help deliver food and aid to Kurdish refugees.

Also killed in the Friday crash were Lt. Cmdr. Jon A. Rystrom, 38, of Stromsburg, Neb.; Lt. William R. Dyer, 26, of Cookeville, Tenn.; Lt. Robert A. Forwalder, 25, of Uniontown, Ohio; and Lt. Patrick J. Ardaiz, 28, of Baltimore.