EAST WENATCHEE — Daniel Castillo was over the moon with excitement as he sat at the controls of the streamlined Cessna 414 twin-engine airplane Wednesday.

The Quincy 10-year-old had often dreamed of one day becoming a pilot. Bathed in the glow of a radar screen, navigation system and a dozen mysterious gauges, he raptly listened as Bob Hood, a pilot and business manager for Wings of Wenatchee, spent nearly an hour showing him how the company’s premier plane worked.

“This one even has a computer that can fly the airplane,” Hood said.

“By itself?” Daniel asked incredulously.

“By itself,” answered Hood.

Quite a day for the boy who less than seven months ago underwent brain surgery to remove a tumor that caused him daily seizures and threatened his life.

But the flight lesson in a plane parked safely in a hangar was hardly the highlight of the day made possible by the Make a Wish Foundation. The Make a Wish Foundation makes possible the dreams of children who have life-threatening medical conditions. Sometimes, it’s their final dream, said Sheri Harvey, a local volunteer for the program.

In Daniel’s case, it was a wish come true and maybe an inspiration for his future. Hood, who started flying lessons when he was 13, said he wanted to do something special for Daniel because he knows what it’s like to have a passion to fly. He led Daniel, his parents and two sisters on a four-hour tour of the airport Tuesday and set up a surprise flight.

As he marched Daniel and his family from the hangar to the runway at Pangborn Memorial Airport on Wednesday, Hood asked the boy, “So, do you think you’d like to fly a plane like that someday?” Daniel nodded yes.

The pilot they met a few yards away put it another way: “You’re going to be the pilot today. Where do you want to go?”

Daniel’s eyes grew wide, as did his smile as he realized pilot Tim Moomaw was not joking. He had not expected to get to fly, much less pilot a plane. Moomaw walked him around the much smaller Cessna 172 before helping the youngster inside.

“This plane knows how to fly. We don’t. We just guide it,” Moomaw said.

Daniel needed a stack of four pillows to perch him up in the plane’s left-hand seat, “the seat where the pilot sits,” Moomaw said. “I’ll be your co-pilot. The co-pilot takes off and then turns the controls over to the pilot.”

Daniel’s father, Daniel Castillo Sr., sat in the back seat. Castillo is the assistant pastor at the Quincy Free Methodist Church. The boy’s mother, Zoila, and sisters Priscilla, 12, and Abigail, 7, waved and took pictures from the tarmac as the plane prepared to taxi down the runway.

“I’m ready. Let’s go,” Daniel said, bouncing up and down on his pillows. “I think I’m a little too short.”

Zoila Castillo said the family had lived a routine and happy life until last January when Daniel had his first seizure as they left church. After that, he began having them numerous times a day. Sometimes they were mild and he would lose consciousness for a second or two. Other times his eyes would roll up in his head and his body would become stiff and tremble as if in an epileptic grand mal seizure.

Doctors at first thought Daniel was experiencing mild “absence” seizures that some children experience and later outgrow. When the seizures became worse over the course of the week, the family doctor advised Daniel’s parents to take him to Children’s Hospital in Seattle for more tests. A CAT scan and MRI found he had a tumor about the size of a small mouse in the front of his brain. As the tumor grew, it had created more pressure on the brain, causing the seizures, Zoila Castillo said.

“It was a very unusual kind of tumor that doctors said may have been there since birth. It took nine years to grow into a problem,” she said. The problem was that it was poking into the part of Daniel’s brain that controlled his ability to speak.

“It was a scary time,” she said. “It’s difficult not to let your mind wander to what could be.” Daniel’s older sister Priscilla worried the whole family would change if he was not able to speak again, the children’s mother said.

“We were fortunate because we had our faith to run to,” Zoila Castillo said.

The benign tumor was removed last February without complication. No cancer was found. Daniel will undergo more tests in December to make sure the tumor has not returned. It’s taken several months, but Daniel’s memory and ability to speak have returned to near normal.

Friends nominated the family for the Make a Wish program. Harvey said the program sets up special events for about 300 kids in the state each year. More than 10 North Central Washington kids were helped this year.

The Castillo family will be treated to an all-expense-paid trip to Disney World in Orlando, Fla., in early November, said Harvey, but it might be hard to top Daniel’s day of flying courtesy of Wings of Wenatchee.

“This is great. Something he’ll never forget,” said Daniel’s father, who fully expects his son will one day become a pilot. “He loves anything to do with airplanes.”

Rick Steigmeyer: 664-7151

steigmeyer@wenatcheeworld.com