FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – The National Transportation Safety Board is continuing to investigate a plane crash that occurred late Friday night near the Flagler/Volusia county line.
Investigators are still working to identify the pilot. Aaron McCarter, an aviation accident investigator with the NTSB added on Sunday, the agency will begin to remove the plane from the crash site and take it to a facility in Jacksonville. That’s where they’ll continue the investigation and work to determine the cause of the crash.
“We’re still trying to ascertain what happened at that point,” said McCarter. “The altitude was fluctuating not egregiously, but they were going up and down several hundred feet at a time.”
He continued, “We’re still trying to look at what may have happened and I’ve put a request in for formal air traffic control so that will assist us in determining what happened.”
McCarter said the plane hit the ground with a heavy impact and that a black box was not on the plane.
McCarter also said that investigators will be looking at three things: The human, the machine, and the environment and how “they all interacted with each other” leading up to the crash. This involves examining medical records of the pilot, looking at the engineering details of the plane, and conducting a formal weather study.
According to McCarter, at 5:50 p.m. Friday, the pilot left the Sebastian Municipal Airport headed for Palatka.
The pilot flew north deviating around weather between 900 and 3,000 feet.
McCarter said the pilot took a right turn during his travel and disappeared from the radar, and said he crashed shortly after 6:40 in the evening.
Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly said they were notified about the incident at 8 p.m., and after hours of searching the woods found the wreckage near the county line.
Officials said the plane was a 10-seater 2012 Cessna 208 Caravan that’s typically used in parachute jumps. That specific plane was going to be used next week for skydivers.
Staly said the pilot was the only one on the plane and the family wasn’t notified.
Staly said after midnight, they found the missing plane in a remote, very dense wooded area of Flagler County near the Volusia County line, noting that officers used the smell of fuel to find the aircraft.
The full press conference held by the Flagler County Sheriff’s Office can be found below.