Mark Strub's Saga Reaches Its End

A Wisconsin pilot has been sentenced to six months in jail, with five of those months to be spent outside of prison, for an August 2004 crash that claimed the life of a passenger.

ANN has reported extensively on the case of Mark Strub, who offered to take passengers on 10-minute rides in his 1941 PT-13 Stearman biplane (file photo of type below) during a Children's Miracle Network Balloon Rally in Wisconsin Rapids, for a suggested donation of $10.

While giving Kimberly Reed a ride in the vintage aircraft, the plane struck power lines, and came to rest inverted in the Wisconsin River. Strub survived the accident, but he wasn't able to free Reed, who suffered a broken neck.

According to the NTSB Probable Cause report on the crash, Strub said he had given three people free rides prior to the accident flight. Reed has asked for an aerobatic flight, so with both persons wearing parachutes the plane departed, and climbed to 3,000 feet AGL.

After performing one Cuban eight, a loop, and two hammerhead stalls, Strub and Reed were heading back to the airport, at an altitude of about 50 feet over the water when the aircraft struck the lines, and flipped into the Nepco Lake.

Strub accepted a plea deal last month, in exchange for a reduced jail sentence. On Tuesday, Portage County Circuit Court Judge Frederic Fleishauer sentenced the man to six months of incarceration, with the first 30 days to be served in prison with work release.

Strub will be released after that, reports The Wisconsin Rapids Tribune, to serve the next 60 days at home under electronic surveillance. Strub may then perform 1,000 hours of community service in place of the final 90 days of the sentence.

"There is no way I or anyone doing what I'm doing can impose a sentence that will bring Kim (Reed) back or soften the grief," Fleishauer said in his ruling.

As part of the sentence, the judge also ordered Strub to write a letter of apology to Reed's family, within the next 30 days. Strub must also participate in, and pay for, victim mediation counseling, if Reed's family agrees.

That's unlikely to happen, however... as the wounds still run deep for Kimberly Reed's family. Kevin Reed, Kimberly's husband, said he did not oppose the plea agreement last month not because of any sense of forgiveness for the pilot's mistakes... but because he didn't want to relive the nightmare in a court trial.

"I do not ever want to see the face or have my children have to look in the eye of the man who killed their mother again," he said Tuesday.

Nicholas Borkowski, Kimberly's father, told the paper he opposed the plea deal. "It is incomprehensible to me that the charges had been reduced to a misdemeanor when my daughter, my baby is dead," Borkowski said.

About 40 people showed up at the sentencing hearing to support Strub. Six testified on his behalf, while many others wrote letters of support for the grief-stricken pilot.

"He was so distraught," recalled fellow pilot Daniel Steckbauer, who visited with Strub the night following the accident.

FMI: Read The NTSB Probable Cause Report