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By Editor Becky Watts
WILLIAMSON - According to information obtained from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a de Havilland Tiger Moth aircraft crashed upon departure from Peach State Airport in Williamson this morning.
According to local sources, one person was transported by Life Flight to Grady Hospital and the other was transported by ambulance to a local hospital. Pike County E911 received an emergency call at 10:39 a.m.
Update 11.17.14: According to Major David Neal of the Pike County Sheriff's Office, Richard Epton was the pilot of this plane and Don James was the passenger. Epton, the pilot, was the one life flighted to Grady for emergency care.
Kathleen Bergen, Public Information Officer for the FAA Southern Region, advised that two people were aboard the vintage biplane when it went down. "The FAA is investigating," she said. "We will update this statement when we have new information."
Update 1.12.15 - NTSB Issues Final Report
According to the NTSB report, the pilot of the plane was interviewed by telephone and issued a written statement. In this statement, the pilot advised that the purpose of the flight was to familiarize the passenger with plane's operation. He stated that there were no anomalies noted during preflight inspection, engine start, warm up, taxi or takeoff and that the engine power and performance of the plane were "good" and that the airplane "demonstrated its 'gentle' handling characteristics through both left and right 30-degree bank turns." However, the pilot stated that after he crossed the airport in a traffic pattern altitude, he remembered being in a "vertical, nose-down descent" and had no recollection of how the plane went from level flight to this vertical descent.
The pilot stated that he managed the level the plane and fly between a parked airplane and the airport restaurant before colliding with a flagpole, the restaurant, and landing upright on the ground.
According to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) maintenance records, the plane was manufactured in 1945, had completed its most recent annual inspection on October 3, 2014 and had a total of 1,749 total aircraft hours. The pilot held a private pilot license and was issued an FAA third class medical certificate on April 8, 2014. He had 1,400 hours of flight experience with 305 hours in the accident airplane make and model.
