Federal officials have recovered the wreckage of a powered hang glider that crashed off Kauai on Tuesday, killing the two people on board.
Kauai County identified the victims as pilot Steve Sprague, 48, of Kalaheo and passenger Ray Foreman, 53, of Vista, Calif.
Sprague was the owner of Kauai Aerosports, a company that offers flying lessons in an ultralight aircraft.
Federal officials recovered the wreckage by helicopter yesterday.
National Transportation Safety Board inspector Jim Struhsaker said a camera memory storage cardwas recovered that could reveal what happened on the flight.
He said he was planning to interview witnesses.
The crash happened about 100 yards off Honopu Beach shortly before 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Ocean tour operator Robert Butler, who witnessed the crash, said he saw the aircraft bank within 60 feet of the cliffs along the Na Pali Coast. He heard a pop, like a rifle shot, then saw the aircraft fly out of control and fall into the ocean, he said. His crew and passengers were able to recover the two bodies, but the aircraft sank in about 25 feet of water.
Sprague, who grew up in San Antonio, Texas, also flew hot air balloons and powered parachutes before moving to Hawaii, his former father-in-law told the Star-Advertiser on Tuesday.
While in Texas, Sprague organized a hot air balloon festival that lasted a couple of years and volunteered regularly for another hot air balloon festival, a friend from Louisiana said.
"He’s a nice guy," said Glen Moyer, the editor of Ballooning magazine in Louisiana. "Always quick to respond to anybody who needed help. He was a likeable guy."
Sprague’s family in Hawaii could not be reached, but his former father-in-law said Sprague had two adult daughters on the mainland and lived with his wife in Hawaii.
Nearly 10 years ago, Sprague was the pilot of a hot air balloon that crashed in Texas, causing a passenger to be injured by a power line.
Sprague, then owner of Incredible Journeys Hot Air Balloon Rides, had 900 hours of flight time and 30 hours of flight time in the balloon he was flying, according to a National Transportation Safety Board crash report.
On Jan. 12, 2002, Sprague took off from an airport in Marion, Texas, under clear weather conditions, with six passengers onboard.
While trying to land in an open field, the wind suddenly picked up. Sprague thought he was in an alley between power lines, but noticed, at the last minute, a row of power lines running across the flight path, the report said.
The balloon’s basket hit the power lines. One line was severed and shocked a passenger, causing serious injuries, the report said.
The NTSB ruled that the crash was caused by Sprague’s "improper planning of the approach and failure to maintain clearance with the power lines."
Marcie Cook, the injured passenger, created a website about the experience called hotairballoonaccidents.com.
The website, which lists several complaints against Sprague and other balloon pilots from readers, says Cook lost the vision in her right eye and wrote a book about the crash.
Her website says Sprague did not have insurance and ignored Cook after learning that she was in stable condition in the hospital.
Cook could not be reached for comment yesterday.
"I want everyone to know that hot air ballooning is not a safe sport," she wrote on the website.
———
On vacation
June Watanabe is on vacation. Her "Kokua Line" column returns on May 31.
