A veteran flyer was the only person aboard a deadly plane crash near Goodland, Florida.
"When the 74-year-old Naples Civil Air Patrol member wasn’t flying, there was a good chance he was chatting someone’s ear off about flying."
“He loved to fly and he loved to talk about it,” said Richard Gentil, owner of the Naples Air Center. “He would come in even if he wasn’t flying. He would stop by to say hello.”
So it was no surprise that on Wednesday night Simpson, a recent widower, was in the air piloting the single-engine Cessna 172 he rented from the center, where he was a regular.
Authorities say that around 7:40 p.m., while flying south in the pitch black sky towards Goodland, Simpson crashed in a mud flat just off of Coon Key. He was killed in the wreck.
Goodland residents who live near the crash site reported hearing a loud whining noise followed by an explosion on Wednesday night. Daylight revealed the twisted and mangled remains of the Cessna near a forest of mangroves.
On Thursday, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration descended on Collier County in an attempt to solve the mystery of why Simpon’s plane crashed.
More here...
No comments:
Post a Comment