Scots' US flying school involved in previous crash

THE flying school that leased a light aircraft to a Scottish student and her brother who died when it plunged into a Florida swamp is being investigated over a similar crash last year, it has emerged.

Carly Beattie, 21, and her brother Dan, 24, from Penicuik, Midlothian, were killed when their Cessna 152 came down in a heavily wooded area near Blue Cypress Lake on Thursday.

Carly Beattie, who was studying air transport with commercial pilot training, was at the controls of the plane which failed to return to the Space Coast Aviation flying school at Merritt Island Airport after the scheduled three hour flight.

An extensive search and rescue operation was mounted and both bodies were later found in the partially submerged wreckage. A post mortem was being carried out yesterday.

Beattie, a former pupil at St George's School in Edinburgh, was training to be a commercial pilot at Buckinghamshire New University. She had travelled to Merritt Island in Florida to build up her flying hours and was staying there with her brother and their parents, Elaine and Thomas.

The $90-an-hour plane left the Space Coast Aviation flying school on Merritt Island at 10am on Thursday for a three-hour flight but never returned. The authorities were alerted at 8pm and the emergency services used Beattie's mobile phone signal to locate the crash site.

James Harpring, Indian River Sheriff's Department general counsel, said: "I don't know what the delay was from the airport in notifying the authorities. I don't have a firm grip on exactly what the aviation authority did at the point in time when the flight plan was deemed as not having been abided by."

Yesterday it emerged that the National Transport Safety Board are currently investigating a similar crash involving a plane belonging to the flying school last August which left a young Irish woman in hospital.

Harsha Malkani, 22, suffered head injuries and had to be air lifted to the Medical Center of Central Georgia, while the other student on board and the instructor sustained less serious injuries.

The pilot was flying into Dodge County when the Piper aircraft's twin engines are understood to have failed.

Although the investigation is not yet complete, the preliminary report noted that "no flight plan was filed for the Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight."

The report states that the flight instructor, who had earlier noted that the fuel tanks were filled to "within an inch of the filler neck," took the control of the aircraft but was not able to restart the engine. The airplane struck several trees and came to rest inverted at the edge of a swamp.