Motley Crue deceased pilot identified

The deceased pilot was named as 78-year-old Joie Vitosky, the Scottsdale Police Department said. He was certified as a flight engineer in 1978 and certified as an airline transport pilot in 2019, according to FAA records.

Vitosky was originally from Okemah, Oklahoma, and joined the Marine Corps in his early twenties because he wanted to fly, his ex-wife Ann Vitosky told the Associated Press. He became a Marine Corps aviator and flew helicopters in Vietnam in 1969, she said. After spending over a decade with the Marine Corps, he started flying Learjets.

She said he died doing what he loved, and he would probably be happy to go the way he did. "His passion was flying," she said.