‘He had everything going for him’: Remembering hardworking Maryland man who died in crash

The last thing Jameson Pitcher heard back home in Maryland from his son, Jesse Jameson Pitcher, was how good the hunting trip was going with friends in Kansas.

The younger Pitcher, a 30-year-old Lusby, Maryland, business owner, was one of 67 people killed Wednesday night when American Airlines flight 5342 collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C.

Pitcher was part of a group of 10 men, many of them close friends, who had spent several days hunting geese and pheasant around Great Bend before flying out of Wichita to head back home.

Three opted to drive home because it made it easier to transport their hunting dogs and shotguns. The other seven were on the plane.

Family said Pitcher worked hard to make his young plumbing company successful. The company was started in 2020, according to state records. He employed six people, according to his father, Jameson Pitcher.

He had been married to Kylie Pitcher, who helped build up the business, for just over a year. The two had just recently broken ground on a home they planned to build, Jameson Pitcher said.

“He had everything going for him,” he said. “Everything was falling into place. He worked very hard.”

He grew up the oldest of three, with two younger sisters, Jenna Holiday and Shannon Maughan, who he was very protective of, Pitcher said. His mother, Christine Pitcher, died when he was 13 and his aunt, Robin Cox, helped raise her nieces and nephew.

“He was a very hardworking, caring child,” she said. “We are incredibly proud of what he was able to accomplish in 30 years.”

She started to cry.

Jesse Pitcher loved the outdoors. He started hunting as a teen and hunted a lot of waterfowl with his cousins.

“He had a heart of gold,” his older cousin, Kenny Cox, said. “He had a tough character but he had a heart of gold. If you were in his circle, he’d do anything in the world for you.”

Cox said they had lots of memories hunting together but also riding side-by-sides on the Hatfield-McCoy Trails in West Virginia, about a seven-hour drive from where they live.

One of the other men who died in the crash had gone with them on those trips, he said.

“And one of the other guys is actually the general manager for the company I work for,” he said. “So it was a pretty tight knit group on that plane.”

Photos and stories shared on Facebook after his death show Pitcher was especially bonded with those who shared a love for the outdoors. Dozens of people posted about him. John Pierce, a closed friend, wrote about how Pitcher, from a brief conversation during last month’s Christmas Eve dinner about bear hunting, texted a guide who told Pitcher that a last-minute cancellation opened up a spot in two days.

“In Jesse fashion he replied we’re in before we even discussed actually going,” he wrote. “Long story short we made the trip because that’s how Jesse lived his life, work hard play hard and when the opportunity is there take it. Jesse was the only one to come home with a bear.”

He said Pitcher invited him on the Kansas hunting trip, but he did not go.

A photo online shows the men lined up in front of more than 70 geese.

Chase White, an owner of Fowl Plains, the outfitter in Great Bend that hosted the men, said he and the men shared meals together and conversations about all topics of life.

Pitcher “loved being in camp” with his friends, who were close like family, White said.

He said some of the men had come in past years.

Pitcher, he said, had taken work calls and worked on his computer during the trip.

This year’s trip included three days of duck hunting, some goose hunting and a “European” pheasant hunt, where birds are released for shooters who are waiting in blinds.

“For them to be able to do something for the last five or six days that they all loved together,” he said, “you know, I think that is something really special for sure.”

A GoFundMe has been set up to help the families of “several beloved local hunters from Southern Maryland,” the fundraiser says. It can be found at shorturl.at/jdMLS. A GoFundMe for Pitcher’s family can be found here, shorturl.at/PeDgt.

These are the hunters who died in the collision:

Alexander Huffman, 34

Charles McDaniel, 44

Jesse Pitcher, 30

Jonathan Boyd, 40

Michael Stovall, 40

Steve Johnson, 45

Tommy Clagett, 38.

Contributing: Chance Swaim and Amy Renee Leiker

This story was originally published January 31, 2025 at 11:49 AM.