Record-setting Pilot Dead Vicki Van Meter at 26

Vicki Van Meter's brother said she battled depression and opposed medication, but her family thought she had been dealing with her problems. "She was unhappy, but it was hard for her to open up about that and we all thought that she was coping," Daniel Van Meter said. "This really is a shock, because we didn't see the signs."

Van Meter made national headlines in 1993 and 1994 when she made her cross-country and trans-Atlantic flights accompanied only by a flight instructor. Her instructors said she was at the controls during the entirety of both flights.

After Vicki Van Meter's famous youth, she earned a degree in criminal justice from Edinboro University in Pennsylvania and spent two years with the Peace Corps in Cahul, Moldova. Said her mother: "She led a full and interesting life...She had more guts than any of us could ever imagine."

Source: The Death Pool Blog

Wikipedia biography of Vicki Van Meter

Victoria "Vicki" van Meter (1982 – March 16, 2008) born in Meadville, Pennsylvania) was at one time the youngest pilot. She first flew an airplane at the age of 10. On August 1993 at age 11 she made headlines when she flew from Augusta, Maine to San Diego, California in a Cessna 172. A year later she flew a Cessna 210 over the Atlantic Ocean to Scotland.

Vicki died at her home in Meadville, PA on March 15, 2008 from a self inflicted gunshot wound.