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Life had already been hard for the Collart family for the past three years when they learned on Sunday of the crash off the Australian coast that killed Cpl. Spencer R. Collart and two of his fellow U.S. Marines.
In March 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was spreading, the family’s Northern Virginia home burned down, leaving little more than embers.
Last week, that The family’s beloved dog, Stella, died at the age of 12 from cancer that had quickly spread beyond her mouth.
Now the family is mourning the loss of 21-year-old Spencer, who crashed the Marine V-22B Osprey hybrid plane he was on when a routine exercise suddenly went wrong. The Marine Corps says the cause is still under investigation.
The grief of grief is unbearable for the Collart family.
“We’re hoping this is the last one because we just don’t know how much we can take, you know?” his 19-year-old sister Gwyneth Collart said Tuesday.
What is known about the crash so far is:
Around 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Spencer Collart and 22 other Marines were aboard the aircraft as it passed over a tropical forest on Melville Island, offshore, during an exercise involving the armed forces of Australia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia of the Australian continent flew to East Timor.
Suddenly the plane crashed.
In his role as crew chief aboard the Osprey, Collart would have worked to ensure the safety of everyone on board while the aircraft was down.
Twenty of those passengers survived, one was still hospitalized in critical condition Tuesday, while two others were in stable condition, according to the Marine Corps. The other two Marines who died were Capt. Eleanor V. LeBeau, 29, the pilot who was from Belleville, Illinois, and Maj. Tobin J. Lewis, 37, the executive officer at Darwin Base in Australia, who was from Belleville, Illinois came from Jefferson, Colorado.
News of the crash sparked great sadness and condolences, including from President Biden and First Lady Jill Biden. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine (D) on Tuesday called for a “thorough investigation into what happened.”
On social media, some people simply called the three deceased Marines “heroes.”
This description fits what the Collarts know to be true about Spencer.
The lanky, 6-foot-11 former defender on his high school lacrosse team in Arlington County loved being a Marine, said his father, Bart Collart.
Spencer Collart announced that he planned to join the Marine Corps after taking a flight course as a teenager, enlisting the day after he turned 18 with plans to become an aircrew chief and then a pilot.
When a local recruiter pointed out that Collart’s upper body was too lean for the pull-up requirements of the boot camp, he practiced on the thick branch of a tree behind one of the rental houses where the family lived after the fire. Eventually, he was able to do at least 11 pull-ups on that limb, Bart Collart said.
While training to be a crew chief on the Osprey, Spencer Collart called his father and told him about an exercise that involved finding a way out of a cage submerged upside down in a pool while strapped into a helicopter seat wearing a full helmet, flight suit and boots.
“And then you do the whole thing again blindfolded,” Bart Collart recalled his son saying. “I said, ‘Spencer, that just sounds horrible to have to go through.’ And he goes, “Dad, this is the coolest thing I’ve ever done.” I said, ‘You’re in the right place, buddy.'”
Before Sunday’s accident, Spencer Collart was mourning Stella and was disappointed he wasn’t there to say goodbye when the loving schnauzer had to be put down, his family said.
But he was also excited about it new house the family had built where their old home burned down, in Arlington’s Maywood neighborhood.
Bart Collart said he viewed the almost-completed house during a visit from his base in Darwin in December – looking at the front bedroom that would be his.
“Every time we spoke to him on the phone, he insisted on saying, ‘Don’t sell the house.’ “We have to keep this house,” Collart said. “I think he had visions of returning here one day and raising a family.”
Spencer Collart never got to see the finished house. But the family said they believe he spent his final hours feeling fulfilled.
“He died doing what he loved and he died a hero,” Gwyneth Collart said. “We knew from the beginning when he said he wanted to join the military that it was the right fit for him.”