John D Yamnicky Sr.

Captain, United States Navy, retired - a test pilot's test pilot, aboard American Airlines flight 77 on his way to work on a missile programme at China Lake.

He was a schoolboy football star at McKeesport, played in the Scholastic Orange Bowl on Christmas Day 1947, and was a key member of the Naval Academy team that beat Army in 1950. Shortly after graduating he was an assault wave commander putting Marines ashore in Korea.

He flew three combat tours over Vietnam and, after the Gulf of Tonkin, some of the first strikes in the North. He took a year at the Naval War College and a master's in international affairs, and came back to Squadron 172 as executive officer and then commanding officer.

He made more than nine hundred carrier landings. Fellow aviators called him an exceptional fighter pilot - the man you wanted on your team when the chips were down. He graduated from the Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent River and later directed it, and was elected to the Society of Experimental Test Pilots for his work there. He retired in 1979 and consulted for the test centre afterwards.

He turned down a major command so that he could be at home while his four children were growing, and to help his wife after so many years of sea duty. He was a past grand knight of the Knights of Columbus and sat on the board of two schools, and was instrumental in their merger.

Twelve hundred people came to his memorial service. Some of them stood on the pavement outside.