The Dec. 30 crash killed the aircraft’s 72-year-old pilot, Richard Bills, a Gillespie County resident.
SAN ANTONIO — A preliminary federal report into last month’s Gillespie County crash that killed a 72-year-old pilot suggests that strong winds didn’t play a factor.
Richard Bills of Gillespie County died when his single-engine 2009 Lancair Legacy plane crashed Dec. 30 in a remote stretch of Keese Sagebiel Road, according to officials. According to the National Transportation Safety Board’s initial findings, “a preliminary review of meteorological data for the accident flight did not reveal the presence of any turbulence or low-level wind shear.”
A cause of the crash has not yet been determined by the NTSB. But it reveal more details about the plane itself, a two-seater in which Bills was the sole occupant when it went down.
The NTSB’s report states Bills took off from the Gillespie County Airport in Fredericksburg at 3:47 p.m. before flying west toward Harper, performing several maneuvers, then heading northeast toward Hedwigs Hill.
After it turned back southeast, the NTSB says, “the airplane began to descend” and “the airspeed decreased.” The plane was destroyed in a fire after hitting the ground.
Bills, who officials said was certified as a private pilot, flew for 102 miles before crashing, according to public flight tracking data. The NTSB says the Lancair Legacy was an “experimental” aircraft built by Bills from a kit. It was “equipped with a Continental Motors IO-550-N(8) reciprocating engine and a Hartzell Propeller HC-J3YF-1RF/F7391D-3 three-blade controllable pitch aluminum propeller.”
Federal investigators said an aircraft GPS was secured at the crash site and sent to the NTSB Vehicle Recorders Laboratory.