Ten-year-old Alexis Tingwall, with her mother's dark hair and her father's courage, stood at a podium almost her height and looked out through her glasses at rows of uniformed law-enforcement officers Monday morning.

They were packed, along with hundreds of family and friends, into Hangar G at the Santa Fe Municipal Airport, where the state police aircraft her father flew are housed. The people were there, more than 1,500 of them, to remember her dad, state police Sgt. Andrew Francis "Andy" Tingwall. Her mother, Leighann, and her sister Jenna, 6, sat in the front row.

Her father once held her hand as they rode a roller coaster, Alexis said. She was terrified. He let out a big yell, the kind many gathered in the hangar remembered.

His yelling made her laugh. "Now I love roller coasters," she told the gathered pilots, sheriffs' deputies, city police, state police from several states, and search and rescue volunteers.

Alexis knew her father's job was saving people, she told them. She prayed and prayed he would come back safely after his helicopter crashed in the mountains earlier this week. She knew he died trying to rescue a lost hiker.

"I just wish I could ride one more roller coaster with him," she said.

A born leader with a dream to fly Tingwall, "Ting" to some friends, came from a family of law enforcement officers. His father, Hank Tingwall, who died last year, was retired from the New York City Police Department. A couple of uncles were New York police officers as well.

"I don't know if Andy wanted to be a policeman," said his brother, Steven Tingwall. "I know he wanted to be a pilot, ever since he was 3."

The family moved to Big Sky, Mont., when the future pilot was still a boy. The four brothers grew up hiking, camping, fly fishing, floating down rivers, and gazing at stars. He learned to "push the envelope on dirt bikes" from his big brother Steve, said another brother, Doug Tingwall. "Andy loved adventure in all its guises," he said.

Andy Tingwall graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, earning the class vote for "Most Hard Core." He joined the U.S. Marines and served with Delta Company, 4th Reconnaissance Battalion for three years. In 1995, he joined the New Mexico State Police.

His fellow officers describe him as smart, honest, dependable, with a big, bellowing laugh, an ever-present smile and a hug for anyone who was down.

He was the kind of guy who would tell even a governor where to sit,said Gov. Bill Richardson, speaking at the memorial. Tingwall flew Richardson often. "He loved his helicopter, he loved the sky," Richardson said. "He loved saving people."

In his 14 years with state police, Tingwall served with the tactical team as a public-information officer and trained more than 300 recruits to be law-enforcement officers. He was tough on them, and they loved him, said Terrie Montoya, who worked with Tingwall. And he finally fulfilled his dream of learning to fly. His skills in the air earned him the spot as chief pilot for New Mexico State Police, although he was the youngest among the pilots. He had more than 1,300 hours of flight time under his belt.

Last year, he used his helicopter to rescue lost Boy Scouts and also saved an Albuquerque man stranded in a flooded arroyo. For that rescue, he earned Officer of the Year in March from the New Mexico Sheriffs and Police Association. He was to be awarded the state police Medal of Valor this Friday for the same incident.

On June 9, the night before his 37th birthday, Tingwall took 606,the high-altitude designed Agusta helicopter, up for the last time,looking for a stranger who needed help.

Last words with a loved one

Megumi Yamamoto, 26, was a new graduate student in the Physics Department at The University of New Mexico. She became separated from her boyfriend while hiking high in the Sangre de Cristos on June 9 and called for help on her cell phone.

Tingwall and his spotter, Officer Wesley Cox, landed the helicopter near where they expected to pick her up in the mountainous terrain and went looking for her, according to State Police Chief Faron Segotta. Tingwall carried the exhausted hiker on his back to the helicopter in the gathering dark. They strapped in and took off as a storm rolled in.

Investigators think Tingwall did his best with no visibility through the clouds to bring the helicopter above the peaks near Santa Fe Baldy, but may have clipped the tail rotor on a tree. He radioed in to tell dispatchers what happened. His wife of 11 years, dispatcher Leighann Tingwall, answered. "Are you 10-4?," she asked, the code for OK. "Not really," he said.

"It is fitting that one of the last voices he would hear is that of the love of his life," said Debbie Kuidis, retired chaplain from the Albuquerque Police Department during the memorial.

The decision to rescue a lost hiker

Segotta said Tingwall tried to control the crash into a ravine at about 12,300 feet. The last thing Tingwall said as the helicopter went down was "Hang on, boys." Yamamoto and Tingwall were thrown from the craft as it rolled down hundreds of feet. Cox remained strapped in.

When it came to a rest and he recovered consciousness, Cox crawled out with a crushed leg and hurt back. He found Yamamoto dead and called out to Tingwall, who answered him from somewhere up the slope, in the dark. Cox spent the night in the helicopter, unable to reach Tingwall because of injuries, while searchers trained in high-mountain rescue worked to reach the crash site through the night. The next day, when Cox called out to Tingwall, there was no answer. Cox limped out on his smashed leg and was found by rescuers midday June 10.

Yamamoto's mother and aunt, who had come from Japan, attended the Tingwall memorial. A representative from the Japanese consulate presented Tingwall's family with a wreath and expressed the Yamamoto family's gratitude to those who tried to rescue Megumi, bowing deeply to the Tingwalls after he spoke.

The Yamamoto family held a memorial for Megumi in Albuquerque on Monday afternoon before flying her ashes back to Japan. Megumi Yamamoto's birthday would have been today, June 16.

Cox attended Tingwall's memorial in a wheelchair. It is the second time the young officer has had to deal with a crushed leg — and now,said Kuidis, a crushed spirit.

In 2004, Cox was hit by a car on La Bajada during an Interstate 25 traffic stop, and it shattered his right leg. It took him two years to recover from the injury, for which he was awarded a Purple Heart by state police. The same leg was crushed again in the helicopter crash.

Tingwall's decision to set down the helicopter high on the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Santa Fe Baldy as a storm rolled in wasn't just about the lost hiker. "He asked himself, what if that was his wife, his niece, his daughter? If she perished in the cold that night, he would never have forgiven himself," Doug Tingwall said. "If you understand this, in your heart you'll understand the decision he made."

Farewell to a fallen pilot

Kuidis read a letter from Tingwall to his family, telling them how much he loved them. "Think of me when you see a plane blow by," he wrote.

After friends and family spoke, the haunting melody of "Taps" sounded outside the hangar. Twenty-one shots from rifles shook the air. Two U.S. Marine Corpsmen walked slowly between the long rows of law enforcement officers lined up inside until they stood near the Tingwall family. An Albuquerque police officer dressed in a kilt played "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes.

Three helicopters outside made ready for a flyover to honor the fallen pilot.

A video flickered on the large screen at the head of the hangar near the urn with Tingwall's ashes. "Do you understand?! Doesn't sound like you understand," booms a big voice to some scared-looking recruits. His former recruits and fellow officers in the hangar chuckle. They know that voice. It's Ting.

"The purpose of the training is to teach them to never quit," Tingwall says on the video. "To keep going when they feel there's nothing left."

At the end of the training, he quotes to the new recruits some favorite lines from Shakespeare's Henry V. "This is the way I feel about you guys, for man and woman alike. 'He, who hath shed blood with me today, shall be my brother,' " he tells them. "I love you guys."

Dressed in his state police uniform at the end of the video, Tingwall gives a growling "oohraw" to the camera.

Then he smiles, turns and walks away.

Contact Staci Matlock at 986-3055 or smatlock@sfnewmexican.com.