At the time of his famous father's unusually public death, Aaron Stewart was 10 years old, a fifth-grader.
"I was in class and I got called into the principal's office," Payne Stewart's only son recalls of that nightmarish moment nearly a decade ago. "I thought I was in trouble."
If only it had been so.
Instead, he soon learned what millions of television viewers already knew: His father, one of golf's most recognizable figures and winner of three major championships, was gone.
It was Oct. 25, 1999, and Payne Stewart had left his home outside Orlando, Fla., to fly by private plane to Dallas. Known as much for his traditional knickers and tam-o'-shanter as his championship resume, the flamboyant Stewart, 42, had won the U.S. Open for the second time only four months earlier.
He was on his way to Texas for a tournament, and to look at property for a golf course he planned to design.
Shortly after takeoff, however, the Learjet's cabin lost air pressure and all aboard -- Stewart and five others -- were incapacitated, presumed dead. Set on autopilot, the plane flew on for four hours, Air Force jets shadowing it to see if anyone on board was alive but finding only frosted windows -- consistent with the loss of air pressure -- and no visible signs of movement inside.
Chris Hamilton, a pilot dispatched by the Air Force to investigate, later told ESPN, "It was like a 'Twilight Zone.' "
Finally, after traveling about 1,400 miles, the ghost plane ran out of fuel and crashed into a South Dakota pasture.
Everyone on board was killed.
As the eerie scene played out on TV, Aaron Stewart says he was joined in the principal's office by his sister, Chelsea.
Neither knew why.
"And then our neighbor came and picked us up, but nobody really said anything," Aaron says. "He took us back to our house and a news truck was there; I thought that was weird. And then my sister and I went up into my mom's room and she told us."
Ten years later, his mother says, the pain still cuts deep.
"Time," Tracey Stewart says from Florida, "does not heal all wounds. I don't believe in that one. It's still difficult.
"Not a day goes by that I don't wish Payne was still here. It's hard to believe it's been nearly 10 years, but then there are other days when it feels like it was yesterday."
Tracey, 49, lives in Isleworth Country Club in Windermere, Fla., where her neighbors include a number of PGA Tour pros, and says softly, "I'm doing OK. You do what you have to do."
