NEW YORK – When Seuk Kim took off from Maryland final weekend with three small canine aboard his airplane, it was the newest of many volunteer flights he had made to rescue animals in want.
After realizing a childhood dream of changing into a pilot, Kim transported cats and canine from catastrophe areas, overcrowded shelters and different misfortunes — together with a dog trapped for days in a shipping container — to rescue teams. He lined up different aviators to do the identical.
However Sunday’s flight to New York was his final. Kim’s 1986 Mooney M20J crashed in the snowy woods of the Catskill Mountains, killing the 49-year-old pilot and one of many canine, authorities mentioned. The opposite two pups survived and have been recovering Tuesday.
“There are only a few individuals like Seuk on this world. He has no ulterior motives. He by no means wanted recognition,” mentioned Sydney Galley, a fellow rescue flight volunteer. “He simply needed to assist.”
Whiskey — a 4-month-old Labrador-mix pet who was discovered huddled within the snow with two damaged legs — was doing effectively whereas awaiting surgical procedure at Pieper Memorial Veterinary emergency and specialty hospital in Middletown, Connecticut. Movies confirmed the tawny pup getting stomach rubs, licking a staffer’s face and, later, calmly wanting round whereas having a leg bandage modified.
The opposite surviving canine, an 18-month-old Yorkshire terrier combine known as Pluto, was discovered Monday with minor accidents. By Tuesday, Pluto was on the Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley, the New York group that had been set to obtain all three canine. The third was a five-pound (2.3-kg) pet named Lisa, Galley mentioned.
The Federal Aviation Administration mentioned Tuesday that the plane crashed underneath unknown circumstances in mountainous terrain. Nationwide Transportation Security Board investigators have been on the crash website.
Greene County Sheriff Peter Kusminsky has mentioned visibility was poor Sunday and that Kim sought permission to alter his altitude due to turbulence earlier than the airplane went down in early night.
Galley mentioned the plane — Kim’s third airplane, bought in current months — was geared up with expertise to assist find it in an emergency. Nonetheless, it took authorities till about midnight Sunday to seek out the plane, which was in a couple of foot of snow a few miles from the closest highway, the sheriff mentioned.
Kim lived along with his spouse and their three kids in Springfield, Virginia. Initially from South Korea, he “got here to this nation with little however a dream, and thru exhausting work and perseverance, he constructed a lifetime of that means and generosity,” cousin Christine Kim mentioned in a Fb message.
“Witty, spontaneous, and filled with boundless generosity,” he mixed a caring coronary heart with a way of journey, the Kim household mentioned in an internet obituary.
Seuk Kim had labored in fields together with public relations and advertising. His household mentioned he had pastimes together with cooking and following baseball, however he had lengthy aspired to fly.
He ultimately made that want come true, and Galley mentioned he just lately informed pals that he had landed a job with a constitution flight firm.
“He was on high of the world,” she mentioned.
Kim began flying rescue canine about 4 years in the past and have become a devoted volunteer who dealt with as many as three flights per week and helped line up different pilots, Galley mentioned. Unfazed by enormous canine, cats that different pilots did not wish to fly, or animal potty accidents, he responded to just about any request with a smile and “certain, I can do this,” she recalled.
Earlier this yr, he flew “Connie the container canine,” the canine present in a transport container on the Port of Houston, in response to Galley and to a put up on his memorial web site.
After Hurricane Helene struck components of the Southeast this fall, Kim helped fly planeloads of turbines and different provides to hard-hit western North Carolina and even purchased a pickup truck to drive in hay for farms, Galley recalled.
Penny Edwards of Without end Modified Animal Rescue, one of many teams Kim helped with Helene response, known as him “an enormous asset to not simply us however the whole rescue neighborhood.”
“Our hearts are shattered,” she wrote in an e mail Tuesday.
Maggie Jackman Pryor, the Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley’s government director, mentioned Kim helped save a whole bunch of animals through the years.
Amongst them have been a canine and her 5 puppies that he flew in October to Cathy West of Kuddles & Kisses K9 Rescue in Baltimore. The mixed-breed canine had been on a listing to be euthanized at an overfilled shelter in Tennessee, West mentioned.
“He was so concerned in making an attempt to get the phrase out to volunteer, to different pilots — that it is a good factor to save lots of these canine in order that they don’t die in shelters,” she mentioned.
On Sunday, Galley mentioned, Kim picked up 4 canine at a Virginia airport the place her husband had simply transported them from Georgia. After excitedly telling her husband about his new charter-plane job, Kim took off, dropped a giant canine at a small airport in Maryland, and headed on with the remaining towards Albany, New York.
She imagines that he apologized to his canine passengers because the airplane went down.
“He all the time,” she mentioned, “put everyone forward of himself.”
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Related Press author Cedar Attansio contributed.
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