Major Alberto Gutierrez - Obituary

MiamiHerald.com The Miami Herald

Alberto Gutierrez, 46

Ex-airline pilot
was decorated vet

By Elinor J. Brecher
ebrecher@MiamiHerald.com

Maj. Alberto Gutierrez, of Miami Beach, a U.S. Marine helicopter pilot decorated for service in Somali, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, died Oct. 14 at Miami's Veterans Administration Medical Center.

His sister, Lourdes G. Oquendo, of Miami, said the cause of death was liver disease.

Gutierrez, 46, flew for both American and Delta airlines after leaving active service.

He was born Dec. 22, 1961, at Mercy Hospital, 10 months after his parents and sister emigrated from Cuba. He attended Miami-Dade's Banyan Elementary, then the family relocated to Central America, where his father, also Alberto, worked for multinational corporations.

Her brother "always played with little soldiers and planes," Oquendo said.

After graduating from St. Francis Catholic High School in San Jose, Costa Rica, Gutierrez returned to Miami, lived with an aunt, joined the Marine Corps Reserves and enrolled at Florida International University. He graduated in 1984 with a bachelor's degree in international relations.

From there, his sister said, he went to Camp Lejeune for training, then was stationed at Pensacola. He flew small planes and CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters.

In the Gulf War, Gutierrez "was taking soldiers to the front lines then transporting troops to the front lines and taking back the wounded," Oquendo said.

Among his honors: Air Medal Numeral 2, for participating in an amphibious landing at Mogadishu in 1993.

After Somalia, Gutierrez became a training officer at the Milton (Fla.) Naval Air Station. Four years later, still in the Marine Reserves, he began flying for Delta, as a First Officer on an MD-88 passenger plane.

He joined American in the spring of 2001, also as a First Officer, and would have been on American Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Sept.11, had he not been hospitalized for injuries sustained in a car wreck, his sister said.

"He was saved," she said, but "he stopped flying."

In addition to his sister, Alberto Gutierrez is survived by a 4-year-old son.

Services will be held at 7 p.m. Monday at Ferdinand Funeral Homes & Crematory, 2546 SW Eighth St., Miami. Burial with full military honors follows at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the South Florida National Cemetery, 6501 S. State Road 7, Lake Worth.