Puzzling Personality

An unusual pilot’s dramatic crash in the Sunshine State still has investigators wondering what happened many years later.

Peter Garrison

Friday, November 12, 2021 at 10:18 PM ET

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A pilot’s actions before an accident can illuminate a personality disposed to one. Courtesy: Van's

Key Takeaways:

Despite being an experienced pilot, the 68-year-old sport pilot struggled with basic radio communication and following air traffic control instructions shortly after takeoff.
The flight ended abruptly with a "Mayday" call, followed by a sudden, violent, uncontrolled dive that inverted the aircraft, exceeded its structural limits (leading to a wing failure), and resulted in a fatal crash.
Investigation revealed the pilot had an extensive history of personal troubles, including disbarment, anger management issues, and "valor theft," along with numerous undeclared medical conditions like depression, PTSD, and heart disease, for which he was taking psychoactive medications.
The NTSB concluded the accident was due to the pilot's unsafe maneuvering and exceeding aircraft limitations, with his undisclosed psychological/psychiatric disease as a contributing factor, hinting that it "could have led to intentionally unsafe maneuvering."

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On a clear January day in 2018, the 68-year-old sport pilot of a Van’s RV-12 took off from Fort Myers, Florida, bound for Everglades City, a trip of 51 nautical miles. Before taking off, the pilot had requested flight following, but when he was airborne and the tower controller told him to contact departure control, the pilot did not respond. The controller repeated the instruction and, after checking whether the departure controller had heard from the pilot, tried a third time. There was still no response.

A minute later, the departure controller established radio contact with the pilot. Communication did not go smoothly.