, '' he said , noting that his father had never done anything similar . Still , he said , his father saw a fit . `` I got a helicopter ; these people are in desperate need -- he kind of decided it with Mr. Ward that they were going to do it , and that 's what they did . '' He said his father last called him Monday , after he and Ward had flown doctors from an orphanage outside Port-au-Prince to the Dominican Republic . Spencer Steadman , vice president and general manager of Sweetwater Environmental , described Ward as an experienced pilot who had long flown Jalovec to his business interests , which spanned the state . `` They had an engine failure on one here about three months ago , '' he told CNN in a telephone interview . `` He done a reverse autorotation and set that thing down . No injuries . Four people , they walked away . He was a very good pilot . '' The helicopter that crashed Thursday , a Robinson R44 , was two weeks old , he said . Steadman said he was not surprised when
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- The two people who died Thursday night when their helicopter crashed into a mountain in the Dominican Republic were friends who had left their homes and family in Florida this week to help deliver aid to the people of Haiti , a son of one of the victims said Friday . The accident occurred about 7 p.m. in Dajabon , just east of the border with Haiti , said Rosani Zapata , a spokeswoman for the Dominican Civil Aviation Institute . The helicopter had filed a flight plan from Santiago to Jimani in the Dominican Republic , then on to Port-au-Prince in Haiti . It was en route back to Santiago when the crash occurred , she said . Aboard were pilot John Ward of Fort Myers , Florida , and James Jalovec , a 53-year-old Naples , Florida , businessman who owned Sweetwater Environmental Inc. , a sewage company based in Sebring . Mark Jalovec , 21 , told CNN in a telephone interview that his father began discussing the prospect of helping out a couple of days after the January 12 earthquake that devastated Haiti . `` It kind of caught everybody off guard