BROWNSVILLE — There are two things Pastor Ralph Copeland loved to do.

He loved to preach and he loved to fly small airplanes - and as often as he could, he tried to tie in his passion for flying into his Sunday sermons, his daughter Tina Ruiz said.

"If he didn't do it one Sunday, he did it the next Sunday," she said. "He would always relate his sermons to flying as if everyone else loved flying the way he did."

Copeland, 70, died Friday after his small-engine plane crashed near Mid Valley Airport in Weslaco. Authorities said he flew into a fence bordering the airport as he attempted to land.

Traveling with Copeland was his friend Aaron Voreis, 38, of Brownsville.

Voreis was injured in the crash and was airlifted to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen for examination of a head wound, but he was seen walking around the crash site shortly after the wreck. 

A member of the pastor's church, Voreis had picked up Copeland from his Brownsville home Friday morning so the two could go flying.

"He's been a pilot my whole life," Ruiz said of her father Friday while sitting in the living room of her Brownsville home. "When I was young I lived at the airport."

Ruiz even remembers having planes in the family's backyard.

"We had planes everywhere," she said.

FINAL FLIGHT

But Friday something went wrong. Copeland's plane went down just before 11 a.m., crashing into the airport fence.
 
The impact killed the minister and left Voreis injured, said Weslaco police spokesman David Molina.
 
The younger man was airlifted to Valley Baptist Medical Center in Harlingen for examination of a head wound but was seen walking around the crash site shortly after the wreck.
 
As dusk fell, investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board arrived to inspect the scene, while Copeland's plane still lay mangled along the fence line on Joe Stephens Road.

Questions surrounding the cause of the crash remained unanswered.
 
Flight records indicate Copeland took off from the Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport just after 9 a.m. Friday and landed at South Texas International Airport in Edinburg less than 20 minutes later.

The two men may have been returning to Brownsville when the plane went down, said George Garrett, Weslaco’s emergency management coordinator.
 
The crash was the first fatality at the Weslaco airport since the June 1998 wreck of a Cessna twoseater that claimed the life of student pilot Abraham Tanus Jr., 15, and his flight instructor, 31-year-old Gregory Carey, of Harlingen.

'HE WAS ALWAYS HELPING PEOPLE'

Copeland's past offered few clues, either. He had been flying for more than 40 years and had even been a flight instructor, Ruiz said, adding that his love for planes grew from the time he served in the U.S. Air Force.

He even built a flight simulator at his home so he would be able to enjoy the sensation of flying while grounded.

Voreis had obtained his student pilot's license last month

The pastor and his wife, Trudy, moved to Brownsville about four years ago. He built the New Harvest Ministries Christian Church at 2150 El Jardin Heights Road from the ground up, doing virtually all the work himself, his family said.

As Ruiz scrolled through photographs of her father on her computer screen, she stopped at one that showed him blessing a man who had been told he was terminally ill.

"My father healed him," she said.

She recalls him often speaking about the importance of maintaining a positive outlook.

"The Lord didn't do this, but he can turn it around if you have a good attitude," Ruiz said as she recounted her father's words.

"You couldn't be around him and not be happy," she said.

Before every Sunday service, Copeland greeted each church member with the sign language gesture for "I love you," the daughter said as she demonstrated the sign. He even wore the symbol on his lapel.

Copeland's granddaughter Yoli Perez, 30, remembers her grandfather often reaching out to others in need.

"He was always helping people all the time," she said.

The Copelands traveled extensively over the years, doing missionary work in 32 countries, Ruiz said. They even established two churches in Belize during their several trips there.

"I was blessed that I had such a good father," Ruiz said through tears. "He was a father to an entire congregation of people. I had to share him, but he was such a blessing. He was my dad and I was proud he was my dad."

Funeral arrangements for Copeland are pending.

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Valley Morning Star reporter Allen Essex contributed to this report.
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Laura B. Martinez is a reporter for The Brownsville Herald. Jeremy Roebuck covers courts and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.