Memorial services planned for Lawrence victims of Chicago plane crash

? Three Lawrence-area doctors who died Sunday in a plane crash outside Chicago are being remembered by friends and colleagues as an energetic and fun-loving trio who were dedicated to their patients, active in their communities and known for taking spontaneous trips for pleasure and excitement.

Drs. Tausif Rehman, 34, Ali A. Kanchwala, 38, and Kanchwala’s wife, Maria Javaid, 39, died when Rehman’s twin-engine Beechcraft 58 Baron crashed shortly after takeoff from Chicago’s Midway Airport Sunday night.

All three were originally from Pakistan, but they ended up practicing in northeast Kansas and living in Lawrence.

Rehman was a neurosurgeon and Kanchwala was a pulmonologist at Stormont-Vail HealthCare in Topeka. Javaid was a cardiologist at Providence-Saint John’s Hospital in Kansas City, Kan.

Dr. Aman Kahn, also of Providence-Saint John’s, worked with Javaid and through her came to know Kanchwala.

“Of all the people we know in our community, I have no words to say. They were the most loving people that we have known,” Kahn said. “They were so kind-hearted, always there to help people. In their company, you would never, ever feel bored. They were a joy to be with.”

Kahn said that Kanchwala and Javaid had known each other in medical school at Dow Medical College in Karachi, Pakistan. Both came to the United States for further training, she in upstate New York, he in Arizona. She eventually landed a job at Providence in 2008, and Kanchwala followed her to Kansas the next year. They later married in Kansas, Kahn said.

He recalled Kanchwala as an “awesome” squash player who also enjoyed table tennis.

“We started out professionally but it was not long at all before we knew we were interested in each other as friends,” said Dr. Shawn Magee, a pulmonologist at Stormont and colleague of Kanchwala’s. “We really liked Ali, working with him and being a friend and socializing with him, but his wife, as soon as you met her you wanted to be her friend.”

But it was Rehman, who owned and flew the plane, who was remembered as “a kid at heart.”

“A brilliant young surgeon that had his entire life ahead of him,” recalled Dr. Kent Palmberg, chief medical officer at Stormont.

Rehman earned his medical degree from Aga Khan University in Pakistan and joined the staff at Stormont in February 2013.

Dr. Matthew Wills, a colleague of Rehman’s, said it was unlikely that anyone else had known the three had flown off to Chicago for a pleasure trip last weekend.

“It was just like them all to do something completely spontaneously,” Wills said. “Every time we’d have a get-together they’d tell us how they had just come back from parachuting or some other activity that most of us would have to think twice about doing, and they would just spontaneously do any type of activity like that.”

Their plane took off from Chicago Midway Airport around 10:30 p.m. Friday, en route back to Lawrence. Minutes later, it crashed into a vacant lot in a densely populated residential area in the suburb of Palos Hills, Ill. There were no survivors.

A spokesman for the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office said autopsies were to be performed Tuesday on the three victims but he did not know where the bodies would be taken after that.

Their colleagues said none of the three had any family in the Midwest. Rehman’s parents are said to live in Saudi Arabia. They said Kanchwala has family in the Phoenix area and Javaid has siblings in the Washington, D.C., area.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash and a preliminary report is expected within seven to 10 days.

A spokeswoman at Providence-Saint John’s said a memorial service for Javaid is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Sunday at the Az-Zahra Islamic Center, 8350 Leavenworth Road, in Kansas City.

Officials at Stormont said they are planning a memorial service for Rehman and Kanchwala, but details have not been finalized.