THE air safety regulator has been blasted by a coroner for allowing a self-confessed cowboy of the aviation industry with serious health problems to continue flying until he crashed and killed himself and a paying passenger while suffering an epileptic fit.
Barry Hempel and passenger Ian Lovell were killed on August 31, 2008 when his Yak aerobatics plane crashed into the sea off Stradbroke Island in southeast Queensland, after Lovell had been given the joy flight as a 35th birthday gift from his partner, Samantha Hare.
Coroner John Hutton found Hempel, 60, had a rap sheet of 34 incidents dating back to 1968 and the licence he had at the time of the crash did not allow him to carry passengers, although he was openly running an aviation business. He found Hempel gave an impression of a man who believed he was "above the law", having completed more than 28,000 flying hours and that his health had been affected when he was hit on the head by a hangar door in 2001.
The inquest heard that when the pilot had an epileptic fit at his home in 2002 paramedics were concerned that he wanted to leave immediately to fly. They were so concerned they parked their ambulance across his driveway to prevent him leaving.
The inquest also heard Hempel had suffered an epileptic fit when flying but his passenger was also a pilot and took over the controls and landed the plane.
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