SFBAA Charity Golf Outing Provides Immediate Assistance

The South Florida Business Aviation Association (SFBAA) held its annual Charity Golf Classic on November 13, and one of the unplanned, immediate beneficiaries was an 11-year-old cancer patient. Just after arriving at the PGA National Golf Course a day before the event, Mark Pestal, executive director of business aviation charity AeroAngel, received a flight request from a Daytona family whose 11-year-old daughter with pancreatic cancer needed to fly to Los Angeles in a few days to start treatment.

AeroAngel provides free, private jet flights to help seriously ill children travel to and from lifesaving medical care across the country, and just a day before the golf charity event the FDA had approved a single-patient clinical trial for the young girl. But she was immunocompromised, which ruled out airline flights as a transport option.

After word of the request spread, an anonymous donor spoke with Pestal—a former assistant U.S. attorney and commercial pilot who founded AeroAngel in 2010—and agreed to provide a flight for her and her family on their Dassault Falcon from Daytona (KDAB) to Van Nuys Airport (KVNY).  

On Monday morning, the patient, her parents, and her pet bunny Bon Bon, left from Daytona for their five-hour flight to KVNY, where they were met by a SUV donated by LimoLink, one of the SFBAA event’s sponsors, to transfer them to their hotel.

“Stories like this are a powerful reminder that we are part of one of the greatest and most compassionate communities in business,” noted SFBAA president Scott Ramsden. “Thank you to our entire membership for being such a great community!”