Updated 9:36 p.m., Monday, December 29, 2008
NAPLES, FL — The pilot of a single-engine Cessna airplane who was killed in a crash near Goodland on Dec. 17 was not qualified to fly using only his aircraft’s instruments, according to a preliminary crash report released Monday by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Night visual meteorological conditions prevailed the night of the crash at the Naples airport. But according to the report, a helicopter pilot from the Sheriff’s Office who responded to the scene soon after the crash reported that it was “very dark” with “no visual reference to a horizon looking out towards the Gulf of Mexico.
The lack of visual cues with the naked eye would have required navigation via aircraft instrumentation, the Sheriff’s Office pilot reported.
Before the crash, Simpson, a member of the Naples Civil Air Patrol, told a witness at the Naples Municipal Airport that he was going flying on night recurrence training, according to the report.
Pilots who want to carry passengers at night need to have completed three night takeoffs and landings in the previous 90 days, said Al Russo, a flight instructor with the Naples-based RexAir Flight & Maintenance Center.
“He might have just wanted to go out there and practice to stay current,” Russo said.
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