Blue Skies, Steve: A Community Mourns a Pilot and Friend

There is a particular kind of loss that arrives when someone dies doing what they loved—a grief that is inseparable from a strange, painful gratitude. Steve Zago, a Guelph pilot and coffee entrepreneur, was one of two men killed in a plane crash near Fergus, Ontario, on Saturday morning. He died, as his business partner Adam Wright wrote, “suddenly in a flying accident doing what he loved” .

The crash occurred at about 10:15 a.m. in a field near the intersection of Beatty Line and Wellington Road 17, before the aircraft caught fire . Zago was co-founder of Lost Aviator Coffee Company, a Guelph-based roastery he started in 2020 with Wright, a fellow career airline pilot. The idea took shape during the COVID-19 pandemic, when their flying careers were disrupted, and a conversation led them into the world of coffee .

Zago’s life was shaped by aviation from an early age. He joined the Canadian Armed Forces as a reservist at seventeen, inspired by stories of his grandfather’s exploits as a pilot in the Second World War . He began flight training at eighteen and was working as a bush pilot in the Northwest Territories by twenty. Over a career that spanned more than two decades, he flew a variety of aircraft across Canada and around the world . He joined the Waterloo Warbirds in 2017 as a training coordinator, helping to keep historic jets flying and sharing the thrill of aviation with new generations .

The tributes that followed his death reflected the breadth of his impact. Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie described him as “a local entrepreneur that so many knew and loved across our city,” adding that Zago was “a person who thought of others first — and that’s why he was a success” . Guthrie recalled how, during a lengthy construction project outside the York Road coffee shop, Zago embraced the disruption and delivered freshly roasted coffee to the construction crews while rallying support for other affected businesses. “He immediately turned it into a rallying cry for supporting small businesses and it wasn’t just about him” .

The Waterloo Warbirds remembered Zago as someone whose “passion for aviation shone through in everything he did” . The organization extended condolences to his wife Holly, his family, and his colleagues at Lost Aviator, and to the family of the second pilot who died in the crash. “Steve will be missed by all of us,” the post concluded. “Blue skies, Steve!” .

The Transportation Safety Board has deployed investigators to the crash site, and the cause remains under investigation . The second pilot has not been publicly identified. For a community that knew Zago through his coffee shops, his aviation work, and his quiet acts of generosity, the loss is both personal and public—a reminder of how a single life can touch many others.

For those who knew him, the memory of Steve Zago will be inseparable from the things he loved: the sky, the coffee, and the community he built around both. His death, while sudden and tragic, was also, in a way that only makes sense to those who share his passions, a death in the elements he called home.

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Sources:

· Toronto Sun · St. Catharines Standard · Guelph Today · Waterloo Warbirds