The day that death swooped from sky
Source: Agencies |
March 18, 2010, Thursday
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Print Edition
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THE single-engine kit plane had turned into a glider, almost silently trying to make an emergency landing along a stretch of beach. Pharmaceutical salesman Robert Gary Jones was listening to his iPod while jogging, and neither saw nor heard it when it struck him from behind and killed him instantly.
"There's no noise," said aviation expert Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the National Transportation Safety Board. "So the jogger, with his ear buds in, and the plane without an engine, you're basically a stealth aircraft. Who would expect to look up?"
Jones, 38, was on a business trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina, for GlaxoSmithKline. He was looking forward to getting home to the northern Atlanta suburb of Woodfield, Georgia, for his daughter's third birthday, his mother Pauline Jones said.
Jones was married and had another five-year-old son.
"I was never so shocked in all my life," his mother said, her voice shaking. "They say that God only gives you what you can handle. I said, 'You know what, I've reached my max.'"
The pilot, Edward I. Smith of Chesapeake, Virginia, and his lone passenger walked away from the crash landing near the Hilton Head Marriott Resort and Spa on Monday. The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office named the passenger as David Henry, 59, also of Chesapeake, The Island Packet newspaper reported.
Smith was on the beach on Tuesday, when the four-seater aircraft was hoisted onto a trailer hitched to a pickup truck and towed away.
"I've got a lot of issues going on right now," Smith said. "I've got a plane that's all torn up. And I've got a young man that I killed."
The Lancair IV-P aircraft had lost its propeller, with oil smeared all over its windshield, making visibility difficult, authorities said. It was "basically gliding" when it instantly killed Jones, said Ed Allen, the coroner for Beaufort County on the South Carolina coast.
The plane took off from Orlando, Florida, at 4:45pm and was en route to Virginia when it started leaking oil at about 4,000 meters, said Joheida Fister, spokeswoman for Hilton Head Island fire and rescue.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said no cause had been determined. He said the plane would be inspected in Virginia and that investigators would interview the pilot and any witnesses.
"We don't know what occurred, especially since we haven't actually examined the aircraft," Holloway said.
The airplane model that killed Jones has a turbine engine, can be built from a kit and can fly up to 595 kilometers an hour, according to the Lancair Website.
"There's no noise," said aviation expert Mary Schiavo, a former inspector general for the National Transportation Safety Board. "So the jogger, with his ear buds in, and the plane without an engine, you're basically a stealth aircraft. Who would expect to look up?"
Jones, 38, was on a business trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina, for GlaxoSmithKline. He was looking forward to getting home to the northern Atlanta suburb of Woodfield, Georgia, for his daughter's third birthday, his mother Pauline Jones said.
Jones was married and had another five-year-old son.
"I was never so shocked in all my life," his mother said, her voice shaking. "They say that God only gives you what you can handle. I said, 'You know what, I've reached my max.'"
The pilot, Edward I. Smith of Chesapeake, Virginia, and his lone passenger walked away from the crash landing near the Hilton Head Marriott Resort and Spa on Monday. The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office named the passenger as David Henry, 59, also of Chesapeake, The Island Packet newspaper reported.
Smith was on the beach on Tuesday, when the four-seater aircraft was hoisted onto a trailer hitched to a pickup truck and towed away.
"I've got a lot of issues going on right now," Smith said. "I've got a plane that's all torn up. And I've got a young man that I killed."
The Lancair IV-P aircraft had lost its propeller, with oil smeared all over its windshield, making visibility difficult, authorities said. It was "basically gliding" when it instantly killed Jones, said Ed Allen, the coroner for Beaufort County on the South Carolina coast.
The plane took off from Orlando, Florida, at 4:45pm and was en route to Virginia when it started leaking oil at about 4,000 meters, said Joheida Fister, spokeswoman for Hilton Head Island fire and rescue.
National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Keith Holloway said no cause had been determined. He said the plane would be inspected in Virginia and that investigators would interview the pilot and any witnesses.
"We don't know what occurred, especially since we haven't actually examined the aircraft," Holloway said.
The airplane model that killed Jones has a turbine engine, can be built from a kit and can fly up to 595 kilometers an hour, according to the Lancair Website.
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