Aircraft found with dead pilot inside more than 7 hours after report of possible crash

Plane crashes in Volusia County, found hours later

A small plane crashed in Volusia County on Wednesday evening, but the wreckage was not discovered until Thursday.

OAK HILL, Fla. - One person is dead after a single-engine Zenith Zodiac aircraft crashed Wednesday morning, but investigators say the plane wasn’t found until Wednesday evening. 

The initial call reporting a possible plane crash came in just before noon saying an according to the Volusia County Sheriffs Office. 

Flight Services, a company that contracts with the Federal Aviation Administration, told dispatch the aircraft's beacon was sounding in the area north of Blue Ridge Flightpark Airport. 

Responding deputies with the Volusia County Sheriff's Office didn’t find a downed plane. Investigators searched the area and talked to residents in the small private airport community and said all of the aircraft stationed in the area were accounted for.  Early Wednesday afternoon investigators told FOX 35 News that it could have been a false alarm.

The Sheriff's Office says dispatch received another call from Flight Services later in the afternoon, around 4:17 p.m., notifying them that the emergency beacon was activated from the aircraft that was reported earlier that morning.  Flight Services asked the dispatcher to have a well-being check done on the person to whom the beacon was registered.  Deputies say no one answered the door and the owner’s hangar was empty.            

Investigators say the aircraft was found in a heavily wooded area in Oak Hill, not too far from where it was initially reported to have crashed.  A Sheriff's Office helicopter, Edgewater police officers, and members of the Civil Air Patrol all helped in the search.   

Local pilots question why it took eight hours to find the aircraft since it had a beacon in it. 

"Speculating, I wonder if maybe people thought it was a nuisance or false alert," said Shem Malmquist, a visiting professor at Florida Institute of Technology.  

He is also an aviation crash investigation, but he is not investigating this crash.  Malmquist explained regular emergency responders would not be equipped with radios that would pick up emergency beacon signals from aircraft.   

"The ground vehicles and police and fire rescue on a different frequency for sure," he explained. 

But Malmquist says that all aircraft passing nearby overhead would have picked up the downed plane’s emergency beacon signal on their radios.   

"Sheriffs helicopters should be monitoring that frequency. I can’t imagine it’s not part of the standard operating procedure. If they’re flying overhead they should be able to pick it up," Malmquist said.  

It’s unclear what time investigators started searching from the air.

Deputies have a dirt road that leads back to the crash scene blocked off.  The cause of the crash is unknown at this time.  The pilot’s identity is not being released yet.  

The Sheriff's Office says the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are now investigating.

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