After Plane Crash: Wife, Mother Recalls Husband, Son

SOUTH SEAVILLE — Valerie Lazowski holds back tears as she recalls the final moments before her husband and son took off on an airplane trip from which they would never return.
“I love you more than the sun, the moon and the stars,” Thaddeus Lazowski told his mother. “You know, Mommy, I love you.”
It was the same way he’d always say goodbye to his mom when he was leaving on a trip with his father, also Thaddeus but called Ted, Valerie said.
Valerie was upset because she would normally pray to God asking Him to be the “wind beneath their wings.”
But this time Ted insisted on praying for her. He thanked God for a wife he cherished and said how much Thaddeus loved her.
On Nov. 14 at approximately 11 a.m., Ted, 53, and Thaddeus, 12, took off from the Woodbine Municipal Airport in the family’s Piper Arrow aircraft en route to a family hunting trip in Indiana. Father and son were killed when the plane crashed minutes later in a wooded area off Petersburg Road, near the airport in neighboring Dennis Township.
Bystanders speculated that the poor weather, remnants of Tropical Storm Ida, contributed to the crash, but Valerie said her husband was an experienced pilot who wouldn’t take unnecessary chances in the plane, especially with his beloved son aboard.
“I was there and I saw what he saw,” she told the Herald. “There was a break in the weather. There was a thin spot where the sun was peeking through the clouds, not blue but a definite opening.”
Valerie said Ted likely made it into the blue above the clouds because his landing gear was up and he had radioed to Atlantic City for flight following, which he usually did once he was clear of the clouds.
But then something went wrong.
Valerie thinks he turned around to head back to Woodbine when a wing was torn off by the wind sending the plane into a head spin and crash.
“Ted just loved his boy so much,” she said. “He would never do something dangerous with him in the plane.”
Valerie, 52, was actually very close to getting on the plane with her men. Even though she wasn’t packed for the trip, she was going to fly with them, buy some clothes in Indiana, and fly back on a commercial flight in a few days.
The only reason she didn’t go was because Ted saw the break in the clouds and wanted to take advantage of it right away.
There wasn’t time to get her on the flight.
As distraught as she is from this loss, she wishes she had been with them.
If it weren’t for the loving support she’s been getting from family and friends who have been constantly consoling her, Valerie doesn’t know what she would do.
Now Valerie is trying to live with the memories of her two remarkable Lazowski men and haunted by those final moments they had together.
The day after Thanksgiving, Valerie shared with the Herald some of her memories.
Memories of Ted
Ted was a man’s man, Valerie said.
He loved to hunt, ski and fish.
“He really loved to fish,” Valerie said with a smile as she perused his workshop, which has so many rods and reels it looks like a bait and tackle shop.
As a professional angler for many years, Ted used the money he won in a fishing tournament to buy Valerie’s engagement ring.
“A fish bought my ring,” Valerie likes to say.
Ted was meticulous in everything he did, Valerie said. He was a skillful mechanic and a successful businessman.
He took his love of boats and fishing and built his own business, Ocean View Marine Services. Ted also built his own “homemade” custom 32-foot fishing boat “The Teddy Bear.”
Ted was an excellent cook. He used to be a chef at the Washington Inn, Valerie said.
“Ted could do gourmet and I could do good enough,” Valerie said of their culinary skills.
Ted built the family’s log cabin home and business on 14 acres in South Seaville.
The couple’s bedroom looks like a trophy room for a great hunter with a number of stuffed animal heads and figures hanging on the walls.
“I’m the only woman I know that has a turkey above her bed,” Valerie said.
Eastport, Maine was Ted’s favorite place in the world.
Pain didn’t stop Ted, Valerie said. He lost a finger in a hunting accident and had his hand pierced with a fishing gaff, but he kept on hunting and kept on fishing.
“And if he and Thaddeus had survived the plane crash, he would have kept on flying,” Valerie said.
Just as Ted had fought through his injuries, Valerie said she and her husband had had to fight for their marriage.
The Lazowskis had some trouble with their marriage years ago but ever since Thaddeus was born they worked through the rough times.
“We had a theory about fighting,” Valerie said. When they fought, they would go out on a boat together look at the water and think about why the other person might be right and then talk about it and work it out.
“It worked all the time,” she said.
With tears in her eyes, she said they had just recently agreed to start cherishing each other more.
“He said he would start writing me love letters again,” Valerie said.
Memories of Thaddeus
Thaddeus was a gifted student with diverse interests and a kind heart.
Like other boys his age, Thaddeus played baseball and soccer. He also enjoyed the occasional video game, but his real loves were so much more.
He loved sailing, fishing, surfing, hunting, horseback riding, drawing and the Boy Scouts.
He loved to learn, especially about science and history. For fun, he built robots and read about aviation or military battles.
He could identify nearly every military aircraft ever made and had a particular interest in those from the World War II era.
He was a real hit at air shows, museums and battle reenactments where he often knew more than the adults and volunteered for every demonstration, Valerie said.
He enjoyed meeting World War II veterans such as the Doolittle Raiders, Ordinary Heroes and the Band of Brothers.
At a recent event, a veteran who used to drive Gen. George Patton said he never met a kid who knew more about World War II.
Thaddeus enjoyed the music of that era also. He had many vinyl records from the 1940s, Valerie said. He played the saxophone. On Halloween this year, Thaddeus and two friends went door-to-door dressed in old Army uniforms playing old music and collecting money for charity instead of collecting candy for himself.
“My son. He was just that kind of kid,” Valerie said.
Thaddeus dreamed of attending the U.S. Naval Academy at, Annapolis, Md., becoming a test pilot and then an astronaut. The first time he visited Annapolis, Thaddeus announced that he “would go to school here.”
Thaddeus attended NASA’s space camp several times as well as Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Camp and programs at the Kennedy Space Center. His bedroom wall is decorated with a spacescape of the moon and stars. His library is filled with signed books by Buzz Aldrin, Sally Ride and other famous pilots.
Thaddeus attended a recent shuttle launch with his mom and a couple friends. Valerie said they were so close to the launch that they “were even closer than the astronauts’ wives or the media. We really felt the heat.”
Valerie said all the NASA astronauts and staff at knew Thaddeus.
“NASA had a moment of silence when they heard about Thaddeus’ death, because they all thought he would be the next astronaut,” Valerie said. He is to be included in the Space Walk of Fame.
Because he was so smart and had such unique interests, Thaddeus was bullied a lot, Valerie said. He was constantly struggling for acceptance from the other kids.
Thaddeus wrote an essay on bullying that Valerie is planning to turn into a children’s book.
To give an idea of the way he thought, Valerie described Thaddeus’ Theory on Thinking Outside the Box.
“What people need to do is understand the box, and then think outside the box,” Thaddeus would say. “A lot of people who say they think outside the box really make their own box. Then they want their box to be as good as the original box and everyone will want to jump in their box. But really intelligent people understand the box and then think outside it.”
“The hardest thing about school is that I have to get into the box and stay there,” he would add. “They just want to hear what they already thought and my mind always thinks everything they thought and more and I have to train myself to give people back their own words instead of adding to it and rethinking it.”
Thaddeus wanted his school, Cape Christian Academy, to make science fun so kids would want to learn it. He had a plan to raise money to improve the science lab. Valerie said the school is continuing his dream and will call the renovated lab “Thaddeus’ Play House.”
Those interested in donating to the project can contact the school. He was working on a sailboat design that would utilize the sail as a protective covering against the elements in foul weather.
Valerie said Thaddeus memorized quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein. One of his favorite Einstein quotes was:
“There are two things in the universe that are infinite — the universe and man’s stupidity. I question the universe.”
In handing in a recent school project, Thaddeus was asked to select a quote from the Bible. The quote he chose turned out to be prophetic:
“Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words.” — Thessalonians 4: 17-18.
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