A man has died in a light plane crash after conducting a skydiving drop on the NSW south coast.<\/p>\n
The pilot of the turboprop Pilatus Porter aircraft was returning to Moruya Airport on Saturday after eight skydivers safely completed their jump and landing.<\/p>\n
The 54-year-old was the sole person on board when the plane crashed into nearby bushland shortly after 2pm.<\/p>\n
Emergency services responded to the crash, but NSW Police said the man died at the scene.<\/p>\n
Authorities investigating<\/p>\n
The site has been taped off as an investigation takes place.<\/p>\n
Skyone, which used the plane for its skydiving business, said its focus is on understanding the events that led to the fatal crash.<\/p>\n
“The close-knit skydiving community here is devastated that this has occurred,” a spokesman said.<\/p>\n
“We do everything we can to make it as safe as possible for everyone.”<\/p>\n
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) said investigators are being deployed from its Canberra and Brisbane offices and are expected to arrive at the crash site on Sunday morning.<\/p>\n
They have been tasked with gathering evidence and aircraft components, conducting interviews with witnesses, and collecting relevant records.<\/p>\n
The Australian Parachute Federation, a non-profit setting the safety standards for skydiving and parachuting operators, said it will assist with the ATSB’s investigation.<\/p>\n
“This is incredibly distressing and our thoughts and hearts are with everyone at the scene, the pilot’s family and friends, and the entire skydiving community, which is in shock,” chief executive Stephen Porter said.<\/p>\n
The ATSB is appealing to anyone with video footage of the plane “at any phase of the flight, or in the immediate aftermath of the accident”, to contact them using the witness form on its website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has died in a light plane crash after conducting a skydiving drop on the NSW south…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,12367,112582,44,4277,1160,57805,112581],"class_list":["post-172903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-transport-safety-bureau","tag-moruya","tag-news","tag-nsw-police","tag-pilot","tag-plane-crash","tag-skydiving"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}