When it came to outdoor adventure, few were more passionate than Steve Bleifuhs and John Henricks.
Bleifuhs, the longtime manager with King County’s Department of Natural Resources and Parks, was beloved among Washington’s competitive road cyclists, could change a flat tire faster than anyone and would sometimes race so far ahead of his group that he would get lost, his teammates said.
And at 34, Henricks left his forestry career to pursue his passion for aviation with the Washington National Guard, serving in Iraq and Kuwait and specializing in repairing Black Hawk helicopters while running his plane maintenance business on the side.
The unexpected loss of both men from a small-plane crash south of Eatonville on Saturday has left their families and communities reeling.
Officials have not yet identified who died in the crash. But family members and friends confirmed Bleifuhs, a 53-year-old Issaquah father of two, and Henricks, a 40-year-old Eatonville father of three, as the victims.
The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration are investigating what caused Henricks’ single-engine, two-seat Citabria plane to plummet from the sky shortly after takeoff.
They grew up doing “everything they could outdoors,” including canoeing, biking, fishing and “probably a lot of stuff [they] shouldn’t have.”
Even Steve Bleifuhs’ first job involved cycling. At 14, he loaded newspapers into the baskets of his mother’s blue Schwinn and delivered them throughout the Madison, Wis., neighborhood where they grew up, said his mother, Kathy Behrend.
He was almost like a twin to his brother, with one only needing to say a few words before the other would burst into laughter.
