A 17-year, 26,000-hour A320 captain, who was a check airman for his airline as well as a certified airframe and power plant mechanic, called a friend to say he would fly over his house later that day to show him the Aerostar 601P he had bought.
At a quarter to five the friend, a retired military pilot, watched from beside his house as the Aerostar approached from the east, very low and very fast. It cleared a set of power lines by a few feet, turned north and pulled up into a vertical climb. It performed a right hammerhead turn, recovering 20 feet above the ground. After several other daringly low passes, during which his friend vainly shouted at the pilot to “just stop,” the Aerostar cleared the roof of the house by 5 feet, turned northward again, and shortly afterward crashed and exploded.
