FLAGLER COUNTY, Fla. – The Flagler County Sheriff’s Office has identified the pilot who was involved in the plane crash that occurred Friday night near the Flagler/Volusia county line.
Officials said Jacksonville native Thomas Russell Harvey, 75, was confirmed dead and his next of kin has been notified.
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Flagler County Sheriff Rick Staly sent his condolences to the victim’s friends and family.
The National Transportation Safety Board is continuing its investigation to determine the cause of the crash.
Skydive Palatka, the company Harvey worked for, held a press conference at 6 p.m. where his coworkers recounted how much energy he had and the moment they realized that something was wrong with his Friday night flight.
“He was like my favorite uncle, so yeah, this is hard,” said Art Shaffer, the owner of Skydive Palatka. “Nowadays you can follow the flight and we were actually waiting for him to get here so we can go eat dinner...I walked in and [another Skydive Palakta employee] was following the flight, and she said, ‘I think something’s wrong.'
He continued, “At some point, I just couldn’t wait anymore, so we loaded up the truck and went to the scene until they found the plane...It was one of those nights that’s just hard to believe...In your head, you never thought it’d be Tommy passing that way.”
Shaffer adds that he hasn’t gotten much sleep since the crash, saying the business has “luckily” been busy enough to keep his mind occupied.
“I’ve slept maybe three hours since Friday...but it’s like anything else when you lose someone dear to you, you start talking about it and tearing up...we’re getting past it, but it’s going to be hard.”
He said he has spoken with some of Harvey’s family members, who are “doing as well as can be expected.”
“I talked with his daughter and it’s the first day she wasn’t crying all day and was able to talk about things,” Shaffer said. “I’m sure at some point in the not-too-distant future we’ll be planning a big memorial.”
When the crash happened on Friday, it took investigators hours of searching the dense woods overnight to find the wreckage, which has now been transported to a facility in Jacksonville to be pieced back together.
Because the aircraft did not have a black box, investigators will have to rely on other methods to determine the cause of the crash.
According to the NTSB, Harvey was an experienced aviator with approximately 8,000 flight hours and was en route to conduct a skydiving mission in Palatka.
Preliminary information from the NTSB indicates that he left Sebastian Municipal Airport near Vero Beach at 5:50 p.m. on Friday, heading for Palatka.
The plane flew north, navigating around weather conditions at altitudes between 900 and 3,000 feet.
The aircraft made a right turn and then disappeared from radar before crashing around 6:40 p.m. in a swampy area.
“We’re still trying to ascertain what happened at that point. The altitude was fluctuating, not egregiously, but they were going up and down several hundred feet at a time,” said Aaron McCarter, an NTSB aviation accident investigator.
Monday morning, the NTSB sent News4JAX this statement:
On scene, the investigator began the process of documenting the scene and examining the aircraft. Part of the investigation will be to request radar data, weather information, maintenance records, and the pilot’s medical records. NTSB investigators will look at the human, machine, and environment as the outline of the investigation.
NTSB
“The human being, the pilot, his qualifications his medical records. How many flight hours did he have? Right now, we have preliminary information that he has 8,000 flight hours, so he was a seasoned pilot,” McCarter said. “We also know he was a skydiving pilot, that’s what this operation was. It was an operation to take skydivers unfortunately didn’t make it to the destination.”
Investigators expect to release their preliminary findings within a month. The preliminary report will contain factual information from the initial investigation phase.
A probable cause of the crash, along with any contributing factors, will be detailed in the final report, which may take up to two years.
Previous coverage of the plane crash can be found below.
Witnesses to the accident or those who have surveillance video or other information that could be relevant to the investigation are asked to contact the NTSB at witness@ntsb.gov.
