John Christopher Burch III

1977 - 2020

John Christopher Burch III

John Christopher Burch III was born in Nashville, Tennessee to John C. Burch, Jr. and Susan K. Burch on May 16, 1977. He died unexpectedly on January 8, 2020, at age 42. Services will be held at St. George's in Nashville, TN, this Friday, January 24th at 3:30 pm with a visitation hour preceding.

John was a consummate airman. From a young age, all he was interested was flying: gliders, rockets, science, technology and especially aerospace and aviation. Following in the tradition of his great uncle Lucius Burch, who was also a mid-century maverick airman during the dawn of aviation, John received his pilots' license at 16, before he could drive. From there he served extensively in the Civil Air Patrol in Middle Tennesse coordinating emergency preparedness drills. As a young man, he traveled in Europe and the States, before leaving for flight school in Alameda, California in 2001. He worked as a flight instructor and ground instructor and helped establish a flight school in the Bay Area. Then he left to fly as a bush pilot in Alaska and hunt grizzly. There he acquired the hours and experience necessary before returning to pursue a career in commercial aviation. Based out of San Francisco followed by Houston, he flew multi-engine, commercial passenger jets for Express Jets, United Airlines regional carrier for over 15 years. He achieved the rank of captain in 2012 and was eventually based out of Chicago, where he met his wife Mieko Cook. He held an airline transport pilot certificate with ratings to fly single-engine, multiengine jets, seaplanes and gliders. As he was fond of saying, "My office is in the sky!". They lived in the Portage Park area of Chicago with their 5-year-old daughter Elizabeth. John was kind-hearted and beloved by all his family, students, friends, neighbors and colleagues. He was always willing to lend a helping hand, especially with anything technical. Some of his inspirations were Amelia Earhart, St. Exupery, Richard Bach and Khalil Gibran. He was also an avid outdoorsman, weatherman, scuba diver, sailor and interested in photography and art.