Flight instructor who died in Winter Haven crash had planned ‘simulated engine failure’
A flight instructor who had planned a simulated engine failure was killed Saturday after his small aircraft lost power and nose dived into a Winter Haven home, trapping a 17-year-old girl inside and injuring a flight student.
James Glenn Wagner Jr., 64, of Lakeland, had been flying with student Timothy Sheehy, 33, a resident of Montana who traveled to Central Florida to take flight lessons, said Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd during a press conference early Saturday evening.
The amphibious STOL UC-1 aircraft took off from the nearby Winter Haven Regional Airport, lost power and crashed about 12:43 p.m.
Judd said the purpose of the training flight was “simulated engine failure,” but could not say what specifically caused the crash.
“Let me underscore: We do not know at this time in the investigation whether or not they were simulating engine failure,” he said. “So we don’t know if this was a training exercise gone bad.”
Federal Aviation Administration records show that Wagner’s flight instructor certification was issued in 2016 and renewed on Dec. 21, 2018. His airline transport pilot certificate was issued on Feb. 11, 2019.
The National Transportation Safety Board is tasked with determining the probable cause of the accident, the FAA said. Local law enforcement will conduct a death investigation.
Sheehy and the girl trapped by the plane sustained minor injuries, the sheriff said. Both were taken to a local hospital for treatment. Three members of the family were inside the home during the crash, and three children were playing outside.
The girl, identified as Carmelle Ngalamulume, was inside a bedroom when the plane crashed through the roof and “pinned” her down against a wall. Her 20-year-old brother Joel was in the next bedroom and tried to pull her out. Their mother was taking a shower. Just outside, three children — ages 2, 11 and 15 years old — were playing.
Photos submitted by onlookers and published online by local media show a white aircraft lodged into a home’s roof and standing almost upright.
“As tragic as this was for Mr. Wagner — and it was tragic — it was a blessing today that we didn’t have an entire family wiped out,” Judd said.
Ansley Beach, a 20-year-old Winter Haven resident who lives near the crash site, told the Miami Herald that neighbors rushed to the crash scene to help the trapped girl. Officials were seen wheeling out a body covered in a tarp, she said.
“My neighbor went inside the house because she knows CPR, she saw a little girl trapped in the way,” Beach said via a private message on Twitter. “One pilot got out and told us the engines failed on take off. The other was dead in the plane. When medics arrived they got the little girl out and rushed her to the hospital.”
Note: A previous version of this article, relying on Federal Aviation Administration records, stated that pilot James Wagner’s flight instructor certification had expired at the time of the Feb. 23 crash in Winter Haven that killed him. Updated FAA records show that Wagner’s certification had been renewed prior to the crash. The process was possibly delayed by the government shutdown in December, his colleagues said.
This story was originally published February 23, 2019 at 3:13 PM.
.JPG)