AIR OF DANGER

Fancy fliers have created a huge boom in private-jet travel, no longer the exclusive province of Fortune 500 companies, Elon Musk, or Taylor Swift. Yet for all the allure, flying private is a rather dangerous luxury

- BY JEFF WISE

THEY CALLED HER GYPSET. THE NAME, A COMBINATION OF GYPSY AND JET SET, wasn’t one she’d come up with herself; she’d gotten it from the writer Julia Chaplin, who coined the term in her 2009 book, Gypset Style, to evoke the vibe of bright young things who waft from Sayulita to Tangier to Topanga Canyon, crafting eclectic necklaces and draping yurts with Hermès cashmere. Athletic and glamorously bohemian, with glacial blue eyes and a silver ring in her nose, Gypset embodied her nickname’s ideal, always flying off to go skiing or hang out backstage at a rock show.

Her given name was Lindsey Gleiche. She lived in Huntington Beach, California, a short walk to the Pacific surf. Being a gypset is an occupation best suited for the independently wealthy, and Gleiche wasn’t that; she had a normal job, designing websites for Dollar General. But she was beautiful, friendly, and free-spirited.

In mid-2022, when she was 30, Gleiche met a man five years her junior, Riese Lenders, on a ski trip to Mammoth. Lenders was a pilot who was building his flight experience in turboprops and small jets. He took her on jaunts to Las Vegas to see shows; to Arizona for her birthday; to the Bay Area for more music.

It was an intense but short-lived relationship. The two called it quits in spring 2023, but they continued to see each other occasionally, as exes sometimes do. On a Friday night in July, Gleiche was in her apartment getting ready to have dinner by herself when her phone rang. It was Lenders. He was about to take a spur-of-the-moment flight to Las Vegas with two older couples. The relationship was personal and professional—Lenders was working for Manuel Vargas, but the two were also friends. Perhaps that’s why Lenders was allowed to ask Gleiche if she wanted to tag along—they could make a night of it, hit some bars, and then fly home. What did she think?