Cadet (E-5) Scott H. Lyons was a participant in the Simultaneous Membership Program (SMP). He was a member of Company A, 2/19SF Gp RIARNG and the Providence College Reserve Officer Training Corps.
He was born on 26 December 1969 in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. He enlisted in Company A in 1989 and completed the Basic Airborne Course in July 1989. Scott was a SCUBA diver, earned a green belt in Tae-Kwon-Do, he was a Big Brother, hospital volunteer and a Dean’s list student. He was a pre-engineering major in his junior year at PC.
He received his pilot’s license on March 7, 1990. On the afternoon of March 8, 1990, at North Central State Airport in Smithfield, RI he rented a two-seat Piper Tomahawk (N2603G) and took off around 1:00 p.m. with one passenger, his college roommate, Gregory D. Aucoin, 20.
Shortly after takeoff, when the plane was about five miles from the airport, the engine began to sputter. Two Smithfield Highway Department workers cutting brush in the area heard the sputtering and witnessed the plane go down.
The plane crashed in a wooded area of the Judson Farm at the end of Williams Road. It didn’t burn on impact, but both men aboard were killed instantly.
