Strange Airplane and Unfamiliar Environment Leads to Tragedy

For an expert pilot, this new toy did not turn out to be child's play.

Peter Garrison

Monday, November 25, 2024 at 09:00 AM ET

Verified

Edited By: tccjeremy

He was flying along a river toward a low sun that blinded him to the wires in his path. [Getty Images]

Key Takeaways:

An experienced pilot and passenger died in an amphibious light sport plane after striking un-charted power lines during a low-level flight over Lake Hickory.
Despite the pilot's extensive overall flight hours, logbooks revealed very limited experience (8.4 hours) in the specific amphibious aircraft and an apparent lack of familiarity with the low-level hazards of that particular lake.
The power lines involved were not marked or charted due to their size, posing a significant, difficult-to-spot hazard for aircraft flying close to the water.
The accident underscores that high pilot experience in one type of flying does not automatically transfer to mastery and vigilance in a new aircraft type or a vastly different, low-level operating environment.

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Lake Hickory, created by a dam on the Catawba River in North Carolina, is long and sinuous, oriented broadly east-west. Near its western end is Hickory Regional Airport (KHKY).

On a clear August day in 2023, a pilot, 63, and a passenger, 41, himself a student pilot, took off from KHKY in a Scoda Super Petrel LS, a two-seat amphibious light sport biplane manufactured in Brazil. They flew 5 miles northeast to a point where a highway bridge crosses Lake Hickory. There they turned left over the lake, made a touch-and-go landing, and then continued westward at low level.