Memorial for Capt Jason Dahl

By Arthur Kane
Denver Post

Friends of United Airlines Capt. Jason Dahl, who died while flying one of the airplanes hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001, dedicated a memorial to the pilot Sunday near his home and recalled sad, funny and ironic moments with him.
Jean Baker, a neighbor in the Manor Ridge subdivision in Ken-Caryl Ranch, had dinner with Dahl and his wife, Sandy, the weekend before Sept. 11, and he told her how safe it was to fly.

“I have this fear of flying, and he reassured me that as long as he was in the cockpit, United was the way to go,” Baker said.

Dahl was at the controls of Flight 93, en route from Newark, N.J., to San Francisco, when hijackers broke into the cockpit, apparently intending to fly the plane into a building. The crew and passengers tried to overpower them, and the plane crashed outside Shanksville, Pa.

The stone monument dedicated Sunday, with a gold-colored eagle on top and a plaque reading “May he soar with eagles,” stands outside the subdivision on the corner of Tamarade Drive and Valley Parkway.

Tom Brown, who worked with Dahl in the United pilot training facility since 1990, recalled how his colleague treated him like a supervisor, even though Dahl had more seniority.

“It impressed me that he was my mentor but he was treating me like I was something special,” Brown, of Castle Rock, told about 150 of Dahl’s neighbors before the memorial was unveiled.

Most of the neighbors talked about how Dahl was always willing to help out on projects and quick to invite friends to dinner.

“If you knew him, you would know what friendship meant,” said Diane Krauss, who organized the memorial. “In doing this memorial, I’ve seen the goodness of people, and it has brought me to tears over and over again.”

Other neighbors talked about the various home-improvement projects Dahl undertook despite his busy schedule as a pilot, making it sound like his home was constantly undergoing renovation.

But one improvement project lived long after Dahl.

He was planting flowers around the house just before leaving for his final flight and secretly put in some daffodils to surprise his wife. He never saw the flowers bloom, but one day she walked out of the house to a field of yellow.

“It brought me to my knees in tears when those flowers popped up five months after he died,” Sandy Dahl said.