YULEE, Fla. – The National Transportation Safety Board released the cause of a plane crash into the St. Marys River that killed an 18-year-old recent high school graduate and a plane instructor in 2021.
Student pilot Alexis George and her instructor, 66-year-old David Cuttino, left the Fernandina Beach Airport in a single-engine Cessna 150 on June 30, 2021.
It was George’s fifth flight on the airplane with her instructor and it was supposed to be Cuttino’s last flight before his retirement.
Witnesses recalled seeing a plane nosedive into the St. Marys River and sink in seconds.
In the report, NTSB said the instructor’s decisions led to the fatal crash, citing that the cause was “the flight instructor’s decision to conduct slow flight training at an altitude below the flight school’s minimum recovery altitude and his delayed remedial action when an aerodynamic stall occurred.”
According to the report, radar data indicated George had completed two 360-degree turns at a slow speed at 800 to 1,000 feet when the plane went into a stall, from which Cuttino was unable to recover.
The plane cork-screwed into the river and immediately sank, killing the two on impact.
Aviation Expert Ed Booth said the tragic outcome of the incident is frustrating because it was “entirely preventable.”
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“I think 1,500 feet is a foolish altitude to do these types of maneuvers. I think you need to be at about 4,000 feet for you to do this type of air work, particularly with a brand-new student pilot. There was no reason for this. And it doesn’t matter how good an instructor he was. He made a mistake that day that cost him his life and the life of a promising young student,” Booth said.
The flight school required that kind of maneuver to be done at an altitude of at least 1,500 feet. Another student who had previously flown with Cuttino earlier that day told NTSB that Cuttino “routinely conducted air work below the 15-hundred foot minimum.”
The report said, “It is likely the flight instructor allowed the student to stall the plane at a low altitude and delayed remedial action.”
“So, he allowed her to begin that maneuver, which is too low to effect a safe recovery. I mean, elsewhere in this report, the NTSB found that even though the flight school said 1,500 was the minimum altitude, other instructors there didn’t observe that they went to much higher altitudes because they didn’t think 1,500 feet was high enough,” Booth said.
A-Cent Aviation told NTSB Cuttino was “very professional and would never perform any risky maneuvers.”
The ground director remembered George as a sharp student who took her lessons seriously and was always prepared. The same director said he held Cuttino in high regard, saying he was very cautious and was not one to take any risks while flying.
NTSB found no mechanical problems with the plane after it was recovered from the river.
NTSB also reported that neither George nor Cuttino had any drugs or alcohol in their systems.
News4JAX reached out to George’s father about the report, but the family declined to comment.
Read NTSB’s full report below: