Newlyweds killed in crash remembered as Elks stalwarts

To the regulars at Kona Elks Lodge No. 2616, they were the genial couple — she more obviously so than he — who sat at the end of the bar, a reassuring constant, the sort whose mere absence changes the feel of a room.

There was a sense of grief and dislocation at the lodge Thursday as news spread of how 79-year-old Pete and 65-year-old Sue Hansel, later-in-life lovebirds, had died the previous day in a helicopter crash while honeymooning in Australia.

The Hansels and two other passengers, believed to be Sue Hansel’s daughter and son-in-law, were aboard an Airbus H120 tour helicopter traveling over the Great Barrier Reef when the aircraft reportedly loss power and crashed while on approach to Hardy Reef Pontoon.

The Hansels both died at the scene. The two other passengers, identified by the Daily Courier as Sue Hensel’s 33-year-old daughter and a 34-year-old man, and the 35-year-old male pilot survived the crash and were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

The Australian Transportation Safety Bureau is investigating the incident.

“I heard about the accident from one of the guys who came in (to the lodge),” said Ronald Cole, a friend of the couple. “The report said it was a couple from Hawaii on their honeymoon, but I thought, ‘It couldn’t be Pete and Sue.’”

Cole said the couple first became acquainted about five years ago when Sue started coming to the lodge.

“Pete used to come in, sit at the end of the bar with some of the older Elks,” Cole said. “He seldom smiled. He was quiet, kind of an introvert. But then Sue started coming in, and she’d sit next to him and soon she had him smiling and laughing. She really brought it out of him.”

Cole said Pete Hansel was retired but used to help his brother, who owed Quinn’s Almost by the Sea; Sue Hansel worked for a bookkeeping service.

The Hansels married in December and were looking forward to what was supposed to be “the trip of their lives,” Cole said.

“I told Sue that she was going to have a great time there,” said Cole, who has also visited Australia. “I kind of feel guilty about that now.”

Wendy Zweigardt, who met the Hansels while working for the lodge, said the couple frequently came in for dinner and to relax. She said Pete was “quiet but very kind” and that Susan was “always very sweet.”

“They would both sit at the end of the bar in their favorite seats,” Zweigardt said. “You could tell they just genuinely liked to be around each other. They were a very sweet newlywed couple. I had spoken to both of them just recently on separate occasions. They were both very excited to get married and go on their honeymoon. It was quite obvious that they were very much in love.

“My heart breaks for the families,” she said. “They will be missed by all at the Kona Elks lodge and by all that knew them.”