“My dream was his dream,“ says Donna Diamond of her husband of 10 years, Capt. Dana Diamond
NEED TO KNOW
- More than a month after Capt. Dana Diamond died in a UPS cargo plane crash in Louisville, Ky., his widow is remembering their final moments together
- Diamond worked at UPS for 37 years as a pilot and previously served as commissioner and fire chief of his local fire department in Texas
- Minutes before the deadly crash, he texted his wife
On the night before a crashing UPS cargo plane rained fire and devastation across a swath of Louisville, Ky. — killing 14 — Capt. Dana Diamond planted flowers with his wife, Donna, to encourage more butterflies to flit across their 132-acre ranch in Caldwell, Texas.
“We did good. We've made a beautiful home,” Dana, 62, told his wife before he left to serve as the international relief officer on the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 jet that was bound for Hawaii on Tuesday, Nov. 4.
"We've got so much more to do," Dana said.
The Diamonds had spent much of October together, making improvements to the property on which their house had been built just a year and a half before. That Monday, Nov. 3, they took a tour of the grounds before Donna’s sister, Carol, arrived.
At the end of Carol's visit, she got up to leave, giving Dana a hug and kiss.
"I worry about you, Dana, on those old airplanes,” Carol told her brother-in-law, Donna recalls in an interview with PEOPLE, her first since her husband's death. "I hate it when you fly. I worry about something happening."
Donna Diamond
From left: Dana and Donna DiamondThe longtime pilot quickly reassured Carol. "I'm just going to be riding in the back this time,” Dana said, according to his wife. "I'm going to be the 'cook.' "
“I'll be home before y'all miss me,” he told them both.
The following afternoon, UPS Flight 2976 was rising into the sky at Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport when its left engine and pylon separated from the wing as fire erupted.
The plane careened back toward the ground and crashed in a massive explosion, killing Dana, the other two crew members on board — Capt. Richard Wartenberg, 57, and First Officer Lee Truitt, 45 — and 11 bystanders in the area, PEOPLE previously reported.
Donna was left a widow for the second time in her life.
“I've done this before,” says the 63-year-old whose previous husband, Johnny, died unexpectedly in 2015. (She also shares two children with her first husband, whom she divorced before marrying Johnny.)
“I didn't think I could ever love like I did before, but Dana is the one,” Donna says.
For decades, Dana’s focus was on his career and giving back to his hometown of Bastrop, Texas. He joined UPS in 1988 and rose in the ranks alongside Lee Collins, a fellow pilot.
For some years Dana served as Collins’ deputy in the Independent Pilots Association (IPA), and together they became known as the union's "Batman and Robin."
“You never wanted to have either one of us in a meeting, because you might be in over your head,” says Collins, 65, who worked at UPS for 31 years before becoming CEO of the National Flight Training Alliance. “We were a formidable team.”
Donna Diamond
Donna and Dana (center and right) with two of their grandchildren.Dana also served as commissioner and chief of Bastrop County Emergency Services District No. 1, and later trained aircraft rescue firefighters — some of whom were the very first responders who arrived at the scene in Louisville.
“He was a champion for safety,” says Capt. Jess Grigg, who brought Dana on when he was chairman of the Aircraft Rescue Fire Fighting (ARFF) committee of the IPA. Jack Kreckie, a retired deputy fire chief who oversaw ARFF services at Boston Logan International Airport, says the training he received from Dana was "among the best aircraft training many of us have received." In total, Dana helped train more than 1,000 firefighters in that specialty.
When Dana met Donna in 2015, their worlds quickly expanded.
“I was lost and broken, I'll tell you,” says Donna. “Then I met Dana, and he just filled up everything inside of me.”
She went on a date with Dana in 2010 — her first and her last with him: They were married within a matter of months. This October marked their 10th anniversary.
Capt. Jess Grigg
Capt. Dana Diamond with ARFF teammembers.“We were inseparable,” says Donna of the halcyon days of their marriage. Dana quickly became known as “Papaw” to their now seven grandchildren.
“I loved it that my dream was his dream,” she adds.
Together, the couple built their dream estate. In between long stretches at home in Caldwell, Dana continued to travel across the world for work, leaving sweet notes for Donna to find in his absence.
By October, the pilot had spent almost 25 years flying MD-11s, and was the most senior pilot of that fleet type for UPS. In his last conversation with Collins in August, Dana spoke of his plans to retire in 2026.
Donna still struggles with the bitter irony that her husband decided to bid on the trip to Hawaii, which was supposed to be quick.
Donna Diamond
The Diamonds with their grandchildren.That Tuesday, Dana texted with his 8-year-old granddaughter, Hayden, who shared her Christmas list and a sweet note: “I love you, Papaw.” Donna also communicated with Dana multiple times that day. The tenure of the day shifted when she was checking on one of their cows. Her son, Will, called to ask if she’d heard about a UPS plane crash in Louisville. Did she know what kind of plane Dana was scheduled to be on?
Rushing home, Donna found Will waiting for her and looked at the news, despite his protests. Her nightmare was soon confirmed: Dana’s plane had gone down.
“Oh God, it's him,” Donna recalls saying. “I got on the floor, just screaming.”
It wasn’t until later that day — as she and her family navigated the tsunami of grief and shock — that Donna read one of the last messages Dana sent her, minutes before the crash: "I love you, wife."
Donna Diamond
A young Capt. Dana Diamond.In the following weeks, the local community and people around the nation have collectively mourned. Unanswered questions also remain as the NTSB continues its lengthy investigation.
Collins describes the crash as “the perfect storm of events.”
He says that if the plane had just lost an engine, “that airplane would've flown away just fine.” “But losing an engine, getting a fire going on that wing where the engine left from, and then contaminating… the number two engine and causing that to compressor stall, and then roll back,” Collins continues. “You can't really envision that scenario.”
Donna Diamond
Days before the crash, Dana and Donna took their grandchildren trick-or-treating.He adds, “There was nothing that was going to save them after that second engine rolled back.”
As he awaits the NTSB report, Collins says that he’s alarmed by a change in statistics. For years during his tenure at UPS, the company had no deadly crashes, but in the last 15 years, that’s changed, he says.
“There have been three crashes, all of which were fatal, seven crew members killed, and 11 people on the ground,” says Collins, referencing the three deadly UPS plane crashes that have occurred since 2010, as reported by USA Today.
Capt. Jess Grigg
IPA members salute the casket of Capt. Dana Diamond for the flight from Dallas to Austin.As he mourns his friend and former colleague, Collins says that the best way to honor Dana is by training pilots with a focus on safety — a priority that Dana fought for every day.
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“Dana was very much a formidable person and captain in that he believed in doing things one way, and that was the right way, the safe way,” says Collins. “There were no shortcuts. There were no excuses because we all know our world can have deadly consequences. The goal is to keep that from ever happening.”
Sharing Dana’s impact on the aviation community is important to Donna, even as she holds memories of him close.
“Dear wife, I love you,” Dana wrote months ago in a note that he left for Donna to find, hoping to ease the ache from his absence. “You are the best part of me.”
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