A San Diego man and his flight instructor were killed Friday when their rented plane crashed off the runway of a small Nebraska airport.
Leon Snoberger, 68, a retiree who lived in the Tierrasanta neighborhood, died at the scene, authorities said. His instructor, 54-year-old David Biba of Geneva, Neb., died later at a hospital.
The Cessna 172 had taken off about a half-hour before the wreckage was found about 4 p.m. near a runway at York Municipal Airport.
There were no witnesses to the crash, and the cause wasn't immediately known.
Snoberger's only daughter, Brooke Smith, said her father was visiting friends in Nebraska and had just begun to take flying lessons there.
“He had decided, ironically, that Nebraska would be a safer place to take flying lessons than San Diego,” Smith, 37, said from her Baltimore home yesterday. “My dad was a person who was very cautious about things and was very careful.”
Snoberger moved to San Diego in the late 1950s or early 1960s when he was in the Navy, Smith said. He later worked at the University of California San Diego, managing the budget for the student affairs office until retiring in 2001.
He spent his free time cycling, swimming at the Tierrasanta Pool and hanging out at the Living Room coffee shop.
“He had a sort of dry, off-the-wall sense of humor,” Smith recalled. “He liked to tell puns and long jokes. I think anyone who knew him would remember that about him.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kristina Davis: (619) 542-4591; kristina.davis@uniontrib.com
