SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KRON) – A North Bay family is remembering a loving husband and friend who died in a plane crash in Alaska. Santa Rosa native Andrew Gonzalez was among 10 people killed when the plane he was in went down earlier this month.
The loss has been heartbreaking for Gonzalez’s wife Whitney and his loved ones. They say there is nothing that could ever replace his spirit in their lives.
“He’s someone that is very hard to define because he is so many things,” Gonzalez’s wife Whitney Bowers said. “Soul-crushing. Everyone is at a loss. It is unimaginable what is our current reality.”
The small commuter plane carrying Gonzalez and others went down in the Bering Sea. Gonzalez, who worked as a power generation technician, had to travel a lot to small remote areas.
“So I was at home waiting to confirm him landing from that flight and pretty much what happened, got a feeling, checked a flight tracker and no new information on it and I knew something was wrong,” Bowers remembers.
Bowers never got the call from Gonzalez. His remains, along with the others, were found by search crews days later.
Bowers and Gonzalez both grew up in Santa Rosa and got engaged and moved to Alaska back in 2022 Whitney is close with Gonzalez’s older sister Francesca Arga, who is also grieving.
“He’s my baby brother. He was the heart of our family. We’re all feeling it, all of us,” Arga said.
Gonzalez’s coworkers Michael Bird and Jared Beaudoin are also feeling the pain. Bird’s favorite thing to do with Gonzalez was having game night.
“He definitely had a sense of humor that could make anybody laugh, and you never knew it was coming. He was a blast to work with,” Bird said.
Beaudoin helped Gonzalez get his job in Alaska.
“He lived life full. He loved deep and he captured the hearts of everybody. I don’t think I ever met anybody who didn’t like him,” Beaudoin said.
Gonzalez’s mother-in-law Heather Bowers shared he was Whitney’s world.
“That was her universe, that was everything, and we loved him. He was part of our family too. He was part of so many people’s families. He was a great human being, and he’s going to be so severely missed,” she said.
The family is focusing on moving forward and healing and have created a GoFundMe to help with funeral expenses and other financial needs.
SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KRON) – A North Bay family is remembering a loving husband and friend who died in a plane crash in Alaska. Santa Rosa native Andrew Gonzalez was among 10 people killed when the plane he was in went down earlier this month. The loss has been heartbreaking for Gonzalez’s wife Whitney and […]
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