Trump donor couple adopted New York real estate agent when she was 40 years old

The Hamptons realtor who died with her daughter when their plane crashed in rural Virgini was adopted at age 40 by a Trump donor couple because she reminded them of a daughter they lost in a scuba diving accident in 1994.

John Rumpel, the adoptive father of Adina Azarian and his wife Barbara informally adopted Adina Azarian when she was 40 after working with her on a building they own in New York City.

Adina's biological family are all from New England and she grew up in relative privilege attending The Dwight School in New York City.

By 40, she had become estranged from many of them. Barbara and John, still mourning the loss of their daughter Victoria who died aged 19 in 1994, took Adina, then single and childless, under their wing.

She attended NRA conferences with the couple in Texas, surprising her New York City friends and her family, who knew them to treat her well but who said they could be 'overbearing'.

Adina Azarian, 48, and her two-year-old daughter Aria were killed on Sunday in a hellish Cessna private plane crash. She welcomed Aria via sperm donor and IVF in 2017

John and Barbara Rumpel pictured in an NRA Women's Leadership Forum feature. The couple from Florida informally adopted Adina eight years ago. They say she reminded them of their daughter Victoria, who died in 1994 in a scuba diving accident

The Rumpels' daughter Victoria died aged 19 in a scuba diving accident in 1994. Adina reminded them of her 

'They were her parents, to her anyway,' Tara Brivic-Looper, who attended The Dwight School with Adina, told DailyMail.com.

In 2017, determined to become a mother, Adina used a sperm donor and underwent IVF. In 2020, after years of trying, she welcome Aria.

'She wasn't going to wait for a man, and she was the best mom. She lived for that child,' friends in the Hamptons, where she was well known and liked, said.

'They had the same fire in their bellies, and they were loving, caring children. 

'We had no one else, and we loved her.

'That’s the end of my family. It’s just my wife and I now,' a grief-stricken Rumpel told The Washington Post.

On Sunday, Adina was flying from North Carolina to Long Island with nanny Evadnie Smith. Their pilot was Jeff Hefner.

They were on the Rumpels' plane, a 1990 Cessna V 560 manufactured in 1990.

At around 2.45pm, the plane inexplicably performed a U-turn as it approached Long Island. It then headed back towards the South, hurtling towards Washington DC and ignoring commands from the ground.

The lack of communications spooked security officials and two F-16 fighter jets were scrambled.

The jet was carrying Adina Azarian, her two-year-old daughter Aria, nanny Evadnie Smith and pilot, Jeff Hefner. It took off at 1.13pm from Elizabethton Airport in Tennessee and was scheduled to land at MacArthur Airport in Islip, on Long Island. Instead, it flew north then performed an about-turn and then crashed in Virginia 

Adina Azarian (left), her two-year-old daughter (center) and the child's nanny Evadnie Smith (right) were killed when a jet they were in crashed in rural Virginia on Sunday

Pilot Jeff Hefner was also killed in the crash. F-16 pilots who scrambled to reach the Cessna say he was slumped over in the cockpit 

The Cessna tumbled at a terrifying 28,000ft per minute once it ran out of fuel. The devastating crash site was later revealed

Once in the air, they noticed the pilot slumped over in the cockpit.

While the cause of the crash remains under investigation, experts told DailyMail.com it was likely the result of cabin pressure failure starving everyone on board of oxygen, and causing them to pass out.

When the plane turned around in Long Island to head back to Tennessee, where it had taken off from, the experts say it was likely on autopilot.

Smith was a live-in nanny at Azarian's home in East Hampton, New York, according to The Sun. Originally from Jamaica, Azarian's friends told the outlet Smith was a 'beautiful soul of a woman' who was incredibly close to the mother and daughter.

'She was such an amazing woman,' Azarian's friend Sandy Castillo told The Sun in an interview.

Other friends of Azarian told the Post how she suffered miscarriages and failed rounds of IVF before finally giving birth to Aria.

Adina welcomed Aria via IVF in 2020. She gushed on social media about how she'd wanted to become a mother for years

'It would be fitting that they are together,' Azarian's childhood friend Tara Brivic-Looper told the outlet. 'I don't think they ever weren't together, so if Adina was going anywhere, Aria was always with her.'

'She went through everything as a single woman to have a baby, and I can't say since Aria's been born, I don't think I've seen her twice without her,' said Brivic-Looper, who attended the Dwight School in Manhattan with Azarian.

'It was just the two of them every single day. That was what she always wanted,' she added.

Azarian discussed her difficulties having a child in a 2020 Facebook post, soon after Aria's birth.

'Three years ago I decided I wanted to choose to become a mother,' Azarian wrote.

'With my biological clock ticking, I ended up on a long journey of fertility treatments, IUI, IVF, multiple miscarriages, failed embryo transfers and more.

'I went inward and drew upon my own inner strength to keep going. It was hard but I knew deep down there would be a miracle if I did not give up.'

'I offer my story as a source of inspiration for any woman going through the same struggles with infertility or simply with the decision to create your own family on our own terms,' she wrote.

'Sometimes life takes you places where you didn't imagine it at first but where there is faith, where there is courage, where there is God, there is also hope.'

Hefner's previous employer, the head of a law firm where Hefner worked as a flight captain, told CNN the pilot is survived by his wife and three children.

Adina's adoptive parents are prominent GOP donors, John and Barbara Rumpel, shown with Trump in March 2020. They are pictured with Donald Trump in March 2020

John Rumpel (left) owned the Cessna aircraft that crashed and adopted Azarian with his wife Barbara (right) when she was 40. The two are pictured at a 2017 NRA Foundation dinner

He was described as 'a highly accomplished and skilled Aviator, he flew 25 years with as a Captain with Southwest Airlines and had over 25,000 flight hours,' attorney Dan Newlin told CNN in a statement.

Rumpel told the Washington Post that a love for small planes was only meant to bring the family together.

Azarian (pictured) was described by colleagues as an 'iconic' real estate agent working out of the Hamptons and New York City 

He also said he had never had any issues with the Cessna Citation plane which he used last month to fly from his home in Florida to a second home in the mountains of North Carolina.

Rumpel said police told him the cabin may have lost pressurization, causing those inside, including the pilot, to lose consciousness.

The plane took off at 1.13pm from Elizabethton Airport in Tennessee and was scheduled to land at MacArthur Airport in Islip, on Long Island.

The plane instead approached MacArthur but then turned around at 2.45pm and flew south again, alerting DC officials.

No one on board answered calls from the ground, prompting two F-16 fighter jets from Joint Base Andrews to rush to its side to investigate - a sonic boom was heard over parts of DC and Virginia.

Once in the air, the F-16 pilots reported seeing the Cessna pilot slumped over in the cockpit. Within moments, the Cessna crashed, falling around 28,000ft-a-minute into St Mary's Wilderness, around 175 miles southwest of Washington DC.

While the tragedy remains under investigation, aviation experts tell DailyMail.com it was likely down to cabin pressure failure which will have caused Hefner - and everyone else - to pass out from a lack of oxygen.

When the plane approached Long Island, rather than landing it diverted back to the south.

Search and rescue teams leave the command post at St. Mary's Wilderness en route to the Blue Ridge Parkway to search for the site where a Cessna Citation crashed

Authorities secure the entrance to Mine Bank Trail, an access point to the rescue operation along the Blue Ridge Parkway where the jet crashed on Sunday

Kyle Bailey, a former FAA Safety Team Representative, told DailyMail.com it was likely the result of the pilot programming his route.

'What appears to have happened as the plane was flying to Islip, it was very high.

'They very well might have been incapacitated [by then]. The pilot has waypoints in the program, it's similar to a GPS system. So the autopilot might have been flying him to Islip, then the next point could have very well have been the airport they departed from.

'It could have been towards DC or somewhere down south. It looks like it was affixed in that direction. In that scenario, it's likely the plane was flying itself.'

'It's most likely a loss of cabin pressure or the pilot became incapacitated. He could have had a heart attack or something like that but judging by the fact there weren't any emergency calls made from the passengers that we know of, I'm leaning more toward loss of cabin pressure.

'It typically happens in older planes,' Kyle Bailey, a former FAA Safety Team Representative, told DailyMail.com.

The Cessna involved was a Cessna Citation V 560 manufactured in 1990. It belonged to the company run by the Rumpels.

'It wouldn't have the latest and greatest technology, the planes really evolved around the year 2000 that's when the technology really went crazy,' Bailey said.

Such planes have many pressure relief valves which could have failed. It could have been sudden or gradual, she said.