David D. Willey, the Cape Air pilot who died in a plane crash in the woods of West Tisbury Friday night, was remembered by family, friends and colleagues yesterday as an expert pilot, an avid learner and a family man with a wry sense of humor. He was 61.

“He was a great pilot, an exemplary human being,” Cape Air founder, chief executive officer and fellow pilot Daniel Wolf said yesterday. “This was a special person and it’s a huge loss for the company. It’s a devastating thing for the family.”

An investigation of the crash, which is the first fatal crash in Cape Air’s 19-year history has involved local, state and federal authorities, and was still ongoing last night according to Luke Schiada chief investigator for the National Transportation Saftey Board (NTSB).

“We’re not ruling anything out,” he said, “we haven’t judged any of the information at this point.”

Captain Willey was the sole occupant of the 1981 twin engine nine-passenger Cessna 402, which took off from the Martha’s Vineyard Airport at approximately 8 p.m. Friday night from runway 33 on a repositioning flight headed for Boston.

A few minutes after takeoff the plane went down in a wooded residential area across the road from Nip ’n’ Tuck Farm, about two and a half miles from the airport.

Wreckage from the crash site, including engine and propellers and parts of the fuselage, has been transported to the airport where they were being examined said Mr. Schiada.

He reported that Captain Willey checked in as routine with departure air traffic control shortly after takeoff and that no distress calls were received.

“All communications were standard,” he said.

Mr. Schiada added that he had not yet examined the tapes from the air traffic control tower.

He will examine information including that gathered from a physical examination of the site, maintenance records, environmental control information, pilot experience and medical history.

He said the investigation at the site may have been concluded late last night or should be completed today. The NTSB will publish a preliminary report on its Web site within five days, he added (www.ntsb.gov).

Mr. Schiada was one of seven or eight investigators working at the airport from, variously, NTSB, the Federal Aviation Administration, Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission, Teledyne aviation motors and Cessna.

He said management at the Martha’s Vineyard Airport had been on hand to help through the day.

“They’ve been terrific,” Mr. Schiada said.

Over the weekend West Tisbury and state police worked to secure the crash site, communicate with state and federal agencies and to field informational calls on the incident, said West Tisbury police chief Beth Toomey and state police Sgt. Neal Maciel yesterday.

Chief Toomey said West Tisbury volunteer firefighters also lent support on Sunday for an examination of a household roof neighboring the crash site which was skimmed by the plane.

“We very much appreciate them,” she said.

Captain Willey crisscrossed the globe in his many guises as pilot. He landed on dirt delivering aid to African nations. In the Navy he took off from aircraft carriers. He crop-dusted through the Midwest and the South. He was a firefighter pilot in California, dropping flame retardant on forest fires. As a freight pilot, he delivered goods to China and Japan.

But it was on the comparatively tiny paths he flew for the past three-and-a-half years for Cape Air that he was happiest, said his brother in law Greg Coogan yesterday. The trips between Boston and the Cape and Islands allowed him to get home to his family at night.

He also combined a love for fishing, working as a swordfish spotter in the summers.

“Being married to the Roddy sisters, Dave and I shared a bond. I will miss him dearly,” said Mr. Coogan, speaking from the Willey family home in Vineyard Haven where relatives and friends were gathered yesterday. “I always knew there was someone pulling in the same direction,” he said. “He loved to hug and meant it.”

Born in Munroe, Mich., on August 12, 1947, Mr. Willey got his aircraft license at 15, Mr. Coogan said. He attended Ohio Welseyan University and later entered the U.S. Navy. He met his wife Jackie on Martha’s Vineyard and the two moved to California where Captain Willey flew out of Sacramento as a firefighter pilot. The couple spent time on the Vineyard in the summers and when their second child was a toddler they decided to move to the Island, building the family house in Vineyard Haven during the 1980s.

Their children attended Tisbury elementary school and Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School.

Captain Willey took a job with Southern Air Transport Inc., flying relief missions to disaster areas in Africa and elsewhere. After contracting a parasitic illness during one such trip he curtailed relief flights and began transporting goods to Asia and elsewhere, piloting 747s.

“He was always reading in disparate parts of the world,” said Mr. Coogan. “He always liked to read the Wall Street Journal cover to cover, to keep up with knowing what’s going on. He saw the world as as small as it is. But the most beautiful place in the world to him was right here.”

He also worked for Air New England before taking the job at Cape Air.

“Everything he did he did it well,” said Mr. Coogan, who is also an Oak Bluffs selectman. “He was a simple guy with a tremendous amount of interests.”

He said that he developed a love for the Red Sox on the Island.

“He came to them later than many of us but he loved to catch the last few innings after work,” he said

He loved fishing on his small boat around the North Shore and the rest of the Island and was an avid cook, said Mr. Coogan.

“He took great pride in his dinners. He would always ask the children ‘price it for me’,” he said.

Mr. Willey’s three children — Megan, 24, Ross, 20, and Sophie, 18 — are all in college and returned to the Island over the weekend.

The aviation community responded this weekend and yesterday with messages of grief, some of which were posted on the Gazette Web site by friends, air traffic controllers and fellow pilots and are reprinted on the editorial page of today’s Gazette.

“We were flying famine relief to South Sudan and Ethiopia during the late 1980s when I first met Dave,” wrote JetBlue Airways captain Daniel Hawk in one such message. “He couldn’t wait to get back to his wife and kids on Martha’s Vineyard. In 2003, Dave captained a crippled Boeing 747 to a safe landing in Seoul, Korea after the aircraft blew a tire on takeoff, which jammed the wing flaps and caused a loss of hydraulics.

“I ran into him several months ago at Logan Airport, Boston, and he was so pleased with his gig flying out of his home town. I am deeply saddened, and my heart goes out to his family.”

Mr. Wolf, who is one of the some 120 pilots working for Cape Air, remembered being regaled by Captain Willey with aviation trivia during airport layovers on Saturdays when they both worked full days in the summer.

“Dave was the type of guy he would take an aspiring pilot under his wing,” he said, “he was a leader out there on the line. Great spirit, great energy.”

Michelle Haynes, communications director for Cape Air said it is a small, tight-knit airline and that they feel the loss of Mr. Willey strongly.

“The whole company is really grieving for David now, we’re like a large family,” she said.

Ms. Haynes regularly shared a coffee with Mr. Willey at Boston airports on Fridays. She jokingly accused him of “hanging out just to get a coffee from me,” she said. “I loved his sense of humor.”

Ms. Haynes said Mr. Willey often kidded her about when he would be featured in Pilot Spotlight, a regular column in the Cape Air in-flight magazine Bird’s Eye View. She added that in fact she had been planning to feature him in an upcoming issue.

“He loved the intimate contact,” said Mr. Coogan of Cape Air’s tiny planes. “He’d say, ‘You wouldn’t believe the people I fly’. The waitresses, newspaper sellers, the coffee shop people, everybody knew Dave.”

Ms. Haynes said that Cape Air employees are continuing as normal, as much as is possible.

“It’s like car driving past a crash, you grip the steering wheel a bit tighter but you keep going. People keep coming to the ticket counter and you can’t just stop the job,” she said.

A memorial for Mr. Willey will be held at the Agricultural Hall in West Tisbury this afternoon at 2 p.m. Side dishes, salads and deserts are welcome.

In lieu of flowers, contributions in his memory may be sent to the David Willey Scholarship Fund, care of the Martha’s Vineyard Savings Bank P.O. box 1069 Edgartown, MA 02539.