Christopher L. Reilly, 72

Christopher Reilly — Naval Officer/ Airline Captain; Athol, Idaho Resident Passes

Probably best remembered as a man who loved a challenge, a good book and a fly rod, Chris graduated from Seattle Preparatory High School in 1971, then an all-boys Jesuit school in Seattle. He spent the next 10 years putting himself through Washington State University and getting his flying licenses through CFI. From Pullman, Chris went to Pensacola, Fla., where he entered the Naval Officer Candidate Program.

He was commissioned in 1982 and completed flight training in Beeville, Texas. Chris served two combat deployments, the first aboard the USS Independence CV-62 off Iran and Iraq in 1983-1984. The second was aboard the USS Forrestal CV-59 as a carrier jet pilot in the Mediterranean off Libya. He spent the next two years as an Advanced Strike instructor and Wing LSO in Beeville, Texas. 

Leaving active duty in 1988 to start a family, he was hired at American Airlines two months later and flew the next 25 years both domestically and internationally, retiring in 2018. For many years, he lived in a small house on Crescent Lake in Gig Harbor, Wash., without a television and distracted himself by reading books. He read Russian authors, Irish poets and Japanese Haiku. He was fascinated with cold fusion and quantum mechanics but admitted to understanding very little of it. He enjoyed reading newspapers front to back, while drinking coffee at his favorite haunts. 

Chris attended mass at St Nicholas Catholic Church the entire time he was in the Harbor. He was in the Madrona Men’s Club and summited Mt. Rainier at age 53 with George Dunn and Ang Dorjie. On his vacations, he camped and fly-fished in the remote backcountry of Idaho and was a firm proponent of “no trace left behind.”

He flew his Cessna float plane to secluded lakes in British Columbia and, on occasion, into Tides Restaurant in the Harbor for clam chowder.

While in the Navy, he contracted a little-known malabsorption disorder called Tropical Sprue, which medicine was unable to diagnose for several years. The effects of this chronic disease became too much for his system to hold off, and he passed away April 22, 2025.  

He retired to the Idaho Panhandle on a small private airport to fly his Cessna 180 into backcountry airstrips to fly fish.

He asks forgiveness of anyone he may have ever offended. His funeral Mass will be at St. Thomas the Apostle in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on May 1, 2025, at 11 a.m., with a reception following.  

He is survived by five siblings: Mike (Penny), Corona, N.M., Pamela Sturgill (Brent), Eagle, Idaho, Jon (Lorri), Tucson, Ariz., Colleen Jorgensen, Tucson, Ariz., and Pat (Lisa), Prosper, Texas, along with a host of nieces, nephews and devoted friends. He will be buried in St. Maries, Idaho, with his ancestors near his mother, father and grandfather and the St. Joe River, a stream he fished all his life.

“So, we commend unto Almighty God the soul of our shipmate departed and commit his body unto the deep, in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection, when the sea shall give up her dead unto eternal life, at the trump of the angel and the coming of the Christ, even Jesus who is Savior and Lord.”