KEYSTONE HEIGHTS, Fla. – A St. Augustine stunt pilot who was beloved in the local aviation community died Saturday when his plane crashed at Keystone Heights Airport.
A social media post by the St. Augustine Airport identified the pilot as 46-year-old Warren Cilliers, “an exceptional aerobatic pilot, talented mechanic, and dear friend to so many in the aviation community.”
Patty Wagstaff, a stunt pilot who runs a flight school in St. Augustine, was friends with Cilliers. She said he owned Cilliers Aviation in Palatka, where he specialized in aerobatic planes.
“A lot of people know him and everybody loves him,” Wagstaff said.
News4JAX interviewed Cilliers in 2018 after he witnessed a Piper PA-24 aircraft crash in Palatka that killed a married couple.
Wagstaff said Cilliers, who has a teenage son, loved competition flights but was always safe when he flew.
“(He) never did anything that was considered a hot dog maneuver, very careful about everything. Didn’t have that reputation,” Wagstaff said. “So I can’t speculate really, but can’t help but wonder if there was some medical issue.”
The cause of the crash is not known. The FHP is working with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the investigation.
Bradford County firefighters extinguished the resulting fire (see video of the aftermath below).
Wagstaff said because of Cilliers’ track record, the crash came as a shock.
“He is the most conservative, most safety-conscious guy, and I can’t help but think it wasn’t a physical issue,” Wagstaff said. “I know he just came off a long trip overseas...I’m convinced from what I hear from other people that were there, he wasn’t showing off, he wasn’t doing anything wrong, and he didn’t recover for some reason.”
The St. Augustine Airport’s post about Cilliers’ crash extended condolences to his family and friends, and highlighted his “incredible legacy built on passion, skill and genuine kindness.”
“His dedication to aviation and the joy he brought to everything he did inspired everyone who had the privilege of knowing him,” the post read.
Local aviation pilot and lawyer Ed Booth, who has decades of flight experience, said that crashes like this do happen, with about 400 small aircraft fatalities a year in the U.S.
He tracked the flight path for the single-seat EA-330, a world champion aerobatic aircraft.
Booth said the situation started a little after 10:30 a.m. The pilot was flying the plane in a rectangular shape, which demonstrates control of the aircraft.
“It shows a pilot who is in perfect control of his airplane and then -- for reasons we don’t understand at the moment -- loses control,” Booth said.
Booth said the plane rapidly went up 2,700 feet, then to 3,800 feet. Then it suddenly dropped down to 1,000 feet all in the span of 2 minutes.
“He’s 1,000 feet off the ground, going downhill at 13,440 feet per minute. That is not controlled flight,” Booth said.
Booth said the rapid, scary descent left his jaw dropped. He also said that the plane had been flown often in October, and the pilot pre-planned his appearance at the Keystone Airport.
Records show scheduled activity there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Another reason why Booth said this pilot was taking proper safety precautions.
“Even in that airplane, so something happened,” Booth said.
Booth said he expects the investigation to take a year or more before a cause of the crash is determined.