Video Of Fatal Plane Crash Released
3 Men Killed In Incident
POSTED: Thursday, March 6, 2008
UPDATED: 4:08 pm EST March 6,
2008
TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- Officials on Thursday released video shot by an amateur immediately after the fatal crash at Arthur Dunn Airpark in Titusville.
Three men -- Donald Key, Bill Hess and Phil Schacht -- died after two planes collided on Saturday at Arthur Dunn Airpark in Titusville.
Hess and Schacht were retired airline pilots who lived at Spruce Creek Fly-in, an airpark community near Daytona Beach.
The planes involved in the crash were traveling to the airpark for a monthly pancake breakfast hosted by the Titusville chapter of the Experimental Aircraft Association when the collision happened. The incident stunned dozens of people who had come to the breakfast.
Witnesses told officials that a Velocity aircraft landed at a high-rate of speed and was coming up on another aircraft, according to Local 6 News partner Florida Today.
The pilot attempted to do a "go-around," a maneuver where he attempts to add power to take off again, Titusville Fire and Emergency Medical Services Division Chief Scott Gaenicke said.
The Velocity then veered off into a grass median between the runway and taxiway and struck a Vans RV-8, which was stopped as planes ahead of it parked.
After the impact, the Velocity cartwheeled, landed belly-up about 300 yards from the RV-8 and also erupted into flames, Gaenicke said. Several people at the pancake breakfast rushed to the planes.
"I thought somebody was making a movie," said Roger Given, 71, of Sarasota, who was a passenger in the plane sitting behind one of the home-built aircraft involved.
Because there is no air-traffic-control tower, National Transportation Safety Board representative Butch Wilson said the pilots should have been in contact with one another, and investigators are looking into that communication, among other issues.
The incident is the first fatal crash at Arthur Dunn Airpark in at least two decades, according to an NTSB online database.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
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