A PILOT yesterday told of his desperate radio call to another pilot pleading with him to pull up while helplessly watching his friend’s plane plummet to the ground near Temora.
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David Hunt, 58, of Yarrawonga, died instantly when the XT-912 Tundra Arrow microlight plane he was flying crashed into a paddock and burst into flames about three kilometres north of the Temora airport on Friday afternoon.
He was flying with the owner of Yarrawonga Flight Training Peter McLean, also in an XT-912.
Mr McLean had taken possession of the new planes at Newcastle and he and Mr Hunt were flying them from Maitland to Yarrawonga.
They had left Parkes a little over an hour before the 3pm crash and were preparing to land at Temora to refuel for the final leg to Yarrawonga.
“We were on our final (approach),” Mr McLean said yesterday.
“Another 30 seconds and we would have been on the ground.”
The cause of the crash is still a mystery, but Mr McLean believed mechanical failure was not the cause because the planes had been certified airworthy by CASA only last Tuesday.
“If I had looked around two seconds before I did I would have seen what had occurred,” Mr McLean said.
Mr McLean said what he did see was Mr Hunt’s plane falling and Mr Hunt not responding at the controls.
“I called out to him to pull up, but there was no response,” Mr McLean said.
Mr Hunt’s plane was still carrying about 40 litres of fuel and burst into flames on impact.
“It was a very big fire,” Mr McLean said, stressing the plane caught fire on impact and not before.
Mr McLean said he alerted emergency services to the crash and then circled the crash site for 30 to 40 minutes while police and ambulance officers arrived.
David Hunt was married and operated an information technology consulting business called Systems-Go.
He combined his loves of flying with photography to produce some stunning images.
His family did not want to speak publicly yesterday about the tragedy.
Mr McLean said XT-912s were recreational aircraft worth more than $80,000 each and were bought by his business for use as trainers.
“They were fully certified machines, they are not toys, they are not hand-made,” Mr McLean said.
Mr McLean paid tribute to Mr Hunt, describing him as a very skilled pilot.
“He was the most experienced member of our formation team,” Mr McLean said.
Fellow Yarrawonga aviators Dianne and Gary McNamara praised Mr Hunt’s skill, having watched him since he began flying about three years ago.
“He was a very good pilot,” Mrs McNamara said.
She based that assessment on his skill in following instructions with a formation team overseen by her husband.
“He knew where he needed to be and when he needed to be there,” Mrs McNamara said.
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