A plane with a deceased pilot gets submerged in a lake in Georgia, and recovery personnel are unable to retrieve it despite knowing its exact location.
The jet reportedly crashed at the deepest portion of Lake Hartwell, on the border with South Carolina, and is now submerged beneath 120 feet of water in a tangle of tree limbs.
The sheriff’s office has contacted the victim’s family, but cannot positively identify the pilot until the corpse has been discovered.
According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the pilot was flying on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan, which means the pilot relied on the plane’s navigational instruments rather than visual signals.
IFR is typically implemented when a pilot cannot see properly from the cockpit due to meteorological conditions such as fog or rainstorms.
The morning of September 10, the day of the incident, there were gusts of wind and rain in Hartwell, Georgia, according to the weather reports.
A dive team boat is stationed on the lake and is positioned over the submerged jet as divers work to remove the pilot’s body.
Authorities report that the jet crashed in the deepest portion of Lake Hartwell, on the South Carolina border.
Captain Chris Carroll (pictured) of the Harwell County Sheriff’s Office stated, “We’ve exhausted all of our efforts” in an effort to recover the pilot’s body from 120 feet below the water’s surface.
The unidentified pilot was flying a Beechcraft B55 with two engines and six seats. They were the sole individual on board at the time of the accident. The sheriff’s office has contacted the victim’s family, but cannot positively identify the pilot until the corpse has been discovered.
Saturday morning, the Beech B55 plane took off from Punta Gorda, Florida and crashed into a lake near the boundary of Georgia and South Carolina.
The six-seat, two-engine aircraft was carrying only the pilot, who intended to land at Anderson Regional Airport in South Carolina.
Captain Chris Carroll of the Harwell County Sheriff’s Office reported that witnesses saw the plane circle before plummeting from the skies and crashing into the ocean.
Within forty seconds, onlookers had reached the plane, but by that time it had already begun to sink.
Divers spotted the aircraft on Saturday afternoon, but encountered numerous obstacles while attempting to rescue both the pilot’s body and the aircraft.
“It just so happens that it’s at one of the lake’s deepest areas,” said Hart County Sheriff Mike Cleveland.
“The aircraft is among the woods. I’m informed the aircraft flipped over. The bottom is the top. The jet’s doors are jammed, therefore we cannot retrieve the body from the plane,’ he added.
Carroll stated, “As far as our resources go, we’ve exhausted everything we had to be able to lift the building and get the guy out.”
Carroll noted that the lake’s waters are cloudy to begin with, but at 120 feet below the surface, ‘you just have a few feet of vision,’ and divers must use flashlights to see anything.
The jet sank in less than a minute after impacting the water near Long Point Recreation Area on Hartwell Lake, according to eyewitnesses.
Several organizations, including the NTSB, are working on recovery efforts, and the jet is scheduled to be removed by crane on Thursday.
Using a remote-controlled car, authorities were able to find the pilot’s body in the cockpit after the vehicle was able to enter the aircraft through the rear window.
They were able to push the ROV into the rear window of the aircraft so that it could be driven through the front to inspect the cockpit. At that time, we were able to determine that there was a person aboard the aircraft,’ said Cleveland.
The sheriff’s office believes they will be able to use a crane to remove the plane from the deep portion of the lake on Thursday.
Carroll stated, “Once it is raised, we will have to transport it to a shallow place in order to remove the corpse.”
The NTSB is “working with a salvage company and the insurance company on recovery attempts,” according to its statement.
The efforts to comprehend what transpired are still in the “fact-gathering stage,” and a probe on the cause of the crash could take between one and two years.