Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 24, 1992 TAG: 9203240360
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By DAVID M. POOLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: DUDLEY LENGTH: Medium
"I tried to get him to consider getting into business," his father recalled Monday from his home at Smith Mountain Lake.
"But he never wanted to do anything but fly. He loved it and that was the only thing he ever wanted to do. His career lasted several years, but finally luck ran out, I guess."
Majure, 44, was at the helm of the USAir jetliner that crashed Sunday night during takeoff from La Guardia Airport in New York. He was one of 27 people killed.
Majure was born in Roanoke and spent the early part of his childhood in the valley. He attended Grandin Court Elementary School until age 9, when his family moved to Ohio.
Wallace and Margaret Majure say their son determined at an early age that he wanted to fly. He joined the Navy ROTC at the University of Georgia, where he graduated at the top of his class in 1969, they said.
Majure earned his wings and was stationed in Italy, where he flew jets that shuttled supplies and officers to aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean.
After his retirement, Majure moved to Atlanta and joined USAir in May 1985.
Sunday night, his father was watching a college basketball game on television when a CBS News bulletin broke in with news of the USAir crash.
Majure did not think his son flew routes out of New York, but he grew concerned when the newscast identified the plane as the type he flew - a Fokker 28 Model 4000.
Rescue workers were still on the scene when Wallace and Margaret Majure began calling the airline, the airport and Cleveland hotels - anywhere they could think of - for information about the crash.
As they learned more, the Majures were overcome with the dreadful feeling it was their son's plane.
Once their fears were confirmed, they spent a sleepless night not knowing if he was one of the survivors.
"As time wore on and he didn't call - ," Wallace Majure said, his voice breaking with emotion. "We knew he would call if he were alive."
At 7:38 a.m., they received confirmation that Majure's body had been found in the partially submerged wreckage in Flushing Bay. He was still strapped in his seat when rescue divers reached his body.
Friends and relatives were at their side throughout the day Monday as the Majures made plans to bury their oldest son in the family cemetery of his mother's relatives in Garner, N.C.
Survivors include a 24-year-old son, Wallace III of Marietta, Ga., and a younger brother, David, of Norfolk.
The pilot's father - looking shellshocked - was still trying to come to grips with the tragedy Monday evening.
"Until you have children of your own," he said, grasping a visitor firmly by the arm, "you don't know how dreadful it is to lose one of them. The finality of it. That's all there is."
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB