Bill Sandford photo Barrie Advance

Police and safety officials were on the scene of Sunday's crash in which an Ottawa man lost his life.

Pilot error is likely the cause of a crash at the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport on Sunday, according to a flying expert.

Ottawa pilot Bruce MacKinnon, 61, died Sunday when his small plane crashed and burned near the runway. MacKinnon flew from the Carp airport in Ottawa, and refuelled at the Lake Simcoe airport. Next-of-kin still hadn’t been notified as of Tuesday afternoon.

The crash is being investigation by the Transportation Safety Board. There was no evidence that showed engine malfunction.

Witnesses said the crash happened during a landing technique, called a touch-and-go circuit.

“It’s when you land, you touch the pavement, then go up and around again. It’s a square pattern,” said a spokesperson from the Edenvale Flying Club.

It is common for newer pilots to practise the move, and more-experienced pilots also do it from time to time. At the Edenvale flying school, a student’s touch-and-go lesson can include seven or eight rounds of practice in an hour.

“He obviously had trouble controlling that aircraft. He approached way too fast, and if you approach the runway too fast, it’s going to want to keep flying.”

The plane was a Van’s RV-3 that is built from a kit. There is no ‘black box’ onboard this type of plane.

“The aircraft he was flying is from one of the most successful companies in the world of homebuilt airplane kits,” he said.

The worst thing that can happen in a small airplane is engine failure, but pilots are usually trained to use the plane as a glider and land it in a field.

“It sounded like he knew his airplane, but who knows. It could’ve been wind; it could’ve been a whole bunch of things. Apparently, he’d done that trip up to Barrie before.”

MacKinnon was the wildlife control specialist with Transport Canada, and was a chairperson on the Bird Strike Committee Canada. He spent 22 years with the National Park Warden Service and wrote many publications on wildlife hazard issues. He was a general aviation pilot and enjoyed building experimental aircraft.

Janis Ramsay jramsay@simcoe.com