Sharon Wagner lost both of her siblings, Alan Fuller and Linda Edwards, and a friend who might as well have been family, Valerie Holmes, in that crash Sunday in Chautauqua County.

“They were all great people,” Wagner said. “Those were the three most amazing people I know.”

“All three of them were great Christian people,” she said. “They would do anything for anyone.”

Alan, an experienced pilot, was flying the plane home from a visit to North Carolina. Edwards and Holmes were the passengers.

Pictured is the Grumman American GA-7 flown by Alan Fuller. The Warren man loved to fly, his sister said, serving in the U.S. Air Force for eight years. Submitted photo

“He loved, loved, loved to fly,” Wagner said of her brother. “That was his passion.”

Fuller had served in the U.S. Air Force for eight years.

“He worked on the planes, but he wasn’t a pilot” in the Air Force, she said. He regretted that later. “He wanted to kick himself” and ended up having to earn his license on his own.

Fuller was a regular on mission trips through the First Church of the Nazarene, having gone on six or seven over the years. “He would go and do electrical work,” Wagner said.

He wanted to be involved in the air as well as on the ground. “When he fully retired, he wanted to do mission trips — fly them,” Wagner said. “That was his ultimate goal.”

Pictured is Valerie Holmes, who was “like family and we included her in everything that we did,” said Sharon Wagner.

When he was on land, he was an electrician, having worked for Warren Electric Cooperative, Loranger International, Jackson Cable Company, and Mountain Top Holding — working in conjunction with Youngsville Cable with the last two.

Hard work was common to the siblings.

“He was a workaholic,” she said. And her sister “worked her tail off.”

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Linda had worked for Blair for more than 40 years. “She was very dedicated to that company,” her sister said.

But, there was plenty of room in Edwards’ life for more than work.

“My sister was the most caring, loving person,” Wagner said. “Her passion is her family. Her whole life is her family and her grandkids.”

“She did everything with them. … Took them places, went to ball games,” she said.

One of the things that made an impression on people was Edwards’ smile. “Several people have come up to me and said, ‘I’m going to miss your sister’s smile,'” Wagner said.

“She came here six days a week taking care of my mom,” she said. “She supported my kids, too.”

“We show horses,” Wagner said. That wasn’t her sister’s cup of tea, but it didn’t matter, it was family.

Family extended beyond blood and legal definitions.

“Valerie was like family and we included her in everything that we did,” Wagner said.

“My brother met her through Youngsville Hardware,” Wagner said. “They got to be friends.”

“He got her a job at the cable company,” she said. “We got to be really good friends with her and include her in family stuff.”

“She had just bought her own home in Youngsville and had it fixed up so cute,” Wagner said. “She was very talented in interior design. She was so proud of that house.”

And, she had an in with Wagner and her children.

“She was into horses when she was young,” Wagner said. “She would take care of my horses. I never worried about it when she took care of them. She was a hard, hard worker.”

Flying and horses came together in one memorable family experience.

“He supported me with my horses,” Wagner said. “I supported him with his flying.”

In 2018, Wagner and her daughter went to a horse show in Findlay, northwestern Ohio.

In a hurry to get under way, Wagner took everything they would need out of the back seat of the car and put it in the trailer. Almost everything.

When they arrived, they started to unpack.

“Mom, where are the suitcases?” her daughter asked. “They’re not in here. And they have everything in them. Please tell me you go the stuff out of the trunk.”

There wasn’t time to drive back.

“Maybe Uncle Alan will fly it out,” she suggested.

It was worth a shot and Wagner called her brother. He happened to be flying that direction. “I’m going to Cleveland,” he told her. “I’m going to an air show.”

He agreed to bring the bags.

“He flew it out and dropped it off,” Wagner said. “He saved the day.”

“We were very close,” she said.

The flight and family passions combined when Fuller flew Edwards and Holmes on that the trip to North Carolina last week.

“She was going down to see her grandkids — a little boy and a little girl,” Wagner said. “She wanted to go down and visit. They did the Halloween thing.”

The flight wasn’t a big deal. They had “made that trip several times,” Wagner said.

The weather was expected to be bad in Jamestown that day, but he was no stranger to bad conditions.

And he regularly flew into and out of Jamestown. He knew what the winds could be like there.

He was commercial rated and instrument rated.

“My brother was a very, very experienced pilot,” Wagner said. “I would fly anywhere with him.”

Even when a thunderstorm in North Carolina pushed their departure back 40 minutes, Fuller wasn’t worried.

Wagner spoke with him. “It’s going to get bad,” she said.

“I know,” he said. He said he was concerned about icing, but he reassured her that he would be home safely, despite the weather. “We’ll be fine.”

As usual, she kept tabs on their progress using real-time flight tracking.

Everything was fine until the last minute. The flight tracking looked right, but Wagner knew there was a problem. “I was tracking it on FlightAware,” Wagner said. “When that FlightAware said ‘just landed’ and I couldn’t get a hold of them, I knew something was wrong.”

“Something must have gone horribly wrong,” she said.

“We are devastated,” she said. “It’s just a horrible tragedy.”

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