Toronto victim of Kingston, Ont., plane crash remembered as 'a super amazing person'

One of the victims of Wednesday night's plane crash in Kingston, Ont., is being remembered as a friendly person who did not "deserve what happened" to him.

Toronto resident Bobomurod Nabiev had only recently married Sabina Usmanova. The pilot, Otabek Oblokulov, who was Nabiev's brother-in-law, was also killed. So were Oblokulov's wife and three children, all of whom lived in Houston, Texas.

"He's a super amazing person, friendly, positive . . . that personality. He doesn't deserve what happened, but it's life," Nabiev's friend Ahmad Al Dallal told CBC News on Friday.

"He's just friendly. The smile, that's one thing, he always smiles."

Al Dallal said he met Nabiev — who was originally from Uzbekistan and worked for a Toronto computer firm — approximately eight years ago when they both attended Seneca College.

He doesn't deserve what happened, but it's life.- Ahmad Al Dallal - friend of Bobomurod Nabiev

Even though they have not seen each other much since they left school and started working, they always stayed in touch via social media.

"I know he went back to Uzbekistan, he got married, and I saw his pictures when he went to Niagara Falls," Al Dallal said.

He had not met Nabiev's wife and Al Dallal was shocked to learn that she had also died in the crash.

"Think of someone who just wanted to start their life … and now [this]," Al Dallal said.

Nabiev's boss, Paul Czudnochowsky, last saw him on Wednesday.

"We have a new server in place and that was his last job he was working on with me; and I said 'OK, we'll see you tomorrow,' and I went home," Czudnochowsky told CBC News.

When Nabiev didn't show up for work on Thursday, Czudnochowsky said he texted and called several times, because Nabiev had never missed a day without letting him know.

"The whole afternoon I was texting him and texting him [with] no response," Czudnochowsky said, adding that it was "weird" and "out of character" for Nabiev.

Czudnochowsky learned of Nabiev's death on Friday morning.

He said Nabiev "was very popular" at work. "Now we have a shop that is going to be very upset that he's missing."

"Everyone liked him. He was never in a bad mood even when he had projects that were not going well as you would imagine for a computer tech. He was always pretty easy going [and] much nicer to deal with than a lot of other people," Czudnochowsky added.

Transportation Safety Board officials do not yet know the cause of the crash, which happened in a wooded area near Creekford Road and Bayridge Drive in Kingston.

TSB staff will be combing through the wreckage and analyzing weather reports, plane maintenance logs and the pilot's training record, among other pieces of evidence, looking for clues. 

Meanwhile, members of the Uzbek community in Toronto have launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money to support the couple's family in Uzbekistan and help to cover their funeral expenses.

They say the community is "deeply saddened" by the news of their "horrifying death," adding that "it's a shock to all of us."

Toronto lawyer Rakhmad Sobirov says he's coordinating activities between the Uzbek communities in Texas and Toronto, the Uzbek Embassy in Washington, D.C. and the victims' families in Uzbekistan.

"We expect the Uzbek Consul to arrive in Toronto early Monday morning and have meetings with the TSB, the Coroner's Office and with the Uzbek community," Sobirov wrote in an email to CBC News.