Mount Airy father who died in the Northeast Philadelphia plane crash is put to rest

Steven Dreuitt Jr., who died Jan. 31 in the Northeast Philadelphia plane crash, loved playing video games with his two sons, vacationing with his fiancée, and cooking at his job at the Philadelphia Catering Company. His family always came first.

“Outside of work Steven enjoyed the simpler things in life and focused on what really mattered,” the service program reads. “He was honest, shy, kind, funny, and loved hard.”

More than 100 family and friends gathered Monday to celebrate his life at Ivy Hill Cemetery Chapel in East Mount Airy. Dreuitt, 37, died after his car was engulfed in flames when a medical jet crashed just after 6 p.m. in a parking lot next to the Roosevelt Mall on Cottman Avenue in Northeast Philadelphia. All six aboard the plane perished.

Dreuitt was the lone fatality on the ground. At least 24 people suffered injuries and dozens of nearby homes caught fire or were damaged by plane debris and exploding cars.

Dreuitt’s fiancée, Dominique Goods-Burke, and his 9-year-old son, Ramesses Raziel Dreuitt Vazquez, were also in the car that night. They were on their way home from Macy’s. Goods-Burke and Ramesses were critically burned and remain hospitalized.

Family and friends did not speak during the standing room only funeral service, which was led by Funeral Director Ervina White Beauford, who read a tribute, and Imam Mohammad Yumas Saleh, who presided over a Muslim funeral prayer called Salat al-Janazah.

However, Dreuitt’s mother, Alberta Brown, addressed the crowd briefly afterward, introducing Dreuitt’s oldest son and her grandson, Dominick Dreuitt.

“I’m just thankful that he wasn’t in the car with his dad and his brother and his mom,” Brown said, her voice breaking. Dominick is Goods-Burke’s son with Steven Dreuitt, whom he called “Du.” Ramesses is Dominick’s half brother.

“I just want you all to know that my son sacrificed himself to save his family,” Brown said tearfully. “Because if he didn’t sacrifice himself, we wouldn’t be having just one funeral for Steven. We would be having three funerals, and that’s what I tell myself to help me continue to push through, because that was the kind of person and love that my son was.”

Dominick, a 10th grader at a Germantown charter school, filled his father with pride while watching him play high school football. About two months before his death, Steven Dreuitt started a GoFundMe page to raise money to send Dominick on a school trip to Ghana as part of its STEM program this spring.

“I’m trying to get all the help I can to pay for his trip,” Steven Dreuitt wrote on Facebook on Dec. 10, 2024.

The service was livestreamed via internet so Ramesses’ mother, Jamie Vazquez Viana, who remains by her son’s hospital bed at a pediatric burn center in Boston, and family at the bedside of Goods-Burke, who is at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, could watch.

Dreuitt, affectionately known as “Stoogs,” worked for more than six years as a kitchen manager and team leader at the Philadelphia Catering Company, based in South Philadelphia. Co-owner Tim Kelly described him after the service as hardworking and widely respected by colleagues.

“He just led by example,” Kelly said. “His work ethic and the way he treated people. I can’t say enough about him. It’s a huge loss for us.”

Dreuitt grew up in Mount Airy. He attended Henry H. Houston Elementary School and Murrell Dobbins High School, where he studied accounting prior to graduating in 2005. He had an “undeniable” bond with his sister, Taneisha Dreuitt, and was a Dallas Mavericks NBA basketball fan. For fun, he played basketball at Sedgwick playground or worked out at LA Fitness with his cousin. He visited his mother every weekend to help her with whatever she needed, according to the funeral program.

During the service, White Beauford read a poem, entitled “My Hero,” from Dreuitt’s two sons, Dominick and Ramesses.

“Though I will always miss you Dad, I know you’re by my side,” the poem reads. “In laughter and in sorrow, in sunshine and in rain, I know you’re watching over me. Until we meet again.”