Lancair Iv P Aircraft

Two Austin men aboard plane downed in Matagorda Bay; pilot still missing

Lyle Koen and David Eddington were Austinites who formed a friendship over flying and fishing. On Sunday, Eddington died when the small plane Koen was piloting crashed in Matagorda Bay; Koen is presumed to have also been killed in the crash.

Rescue crews recovered the body of Eddington, 42, shortly after the 10:30 a.m. crash and were continuing to search Tuesday for Koen's body.

Koen's wife, Pat, said the pair was returning to Austin in Koen's Laser/Lancair IVP after a brief fishing trip.

" They both loved Matagorda," Pat Koen said, "We bought a little fishing house on the peninsula. He loved flying to the little airstrip there and being in his fishing house."

Eddington worked as a mechanic at the hangar at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport where Koen, 68, kept his plane, Pat Koen said. Eddington was also a pilot and was not married, she said.

Pat Koen described her husband as a man of "many, many interests" who was appointed to the U.S. Air Force Academy, learned to fly and served in Vietnam. Koen later went to medical school and became an ophthalmologist.

In 1993, Koen returned to Vietnam with his wife to do medical missionary work, with Koen doing surgery in the mornings and lecturing in the afternoon. He also enjoyed hunting, scuba diving and traveling, Pat Koen said.

Koen was largely retired but still worked two hours a day four days a week performing flight physicals for pilots. "He loved that job because he got to talk airplanes," she said.

No flight plan was filed before the aircraft took off from a nearby airfield, state Department of Public Safety trooper Erik Burse said in an email.

The craft crashed "for unknown reason" about two miles from the airport in West Matagorda Bay, then broke apart and sank, Burse said. Skies at the time were described as a mix of clear and cloudy.

Jamie DeSanno, officer in charge of the U.S. Coast Guard's Port O'Connor office, said efforts to recover wreckage from the plane continued into Monday. The effort to find the missing pilot was suspended Monday afternoon and resumed Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety board is investigating. A call Tuesday to that agency's public affairs office in Washington wasn't returned.

Pat Koen said a memorial service for Lyle Koen would be at 2 p.m. Saturday in the conference room at the Texas Military Forces Museum at Camp Mabry, 2200 W. 35th St.

pbeach@statesman.

Aero-TV: The Lancair Factory – Where High ... - Cirrus Aircraft

Hey Scrapheap71, i’m not a professional, just a private pilot, but I worked line service for a year and a half at the Redmond airport and dealt with lancairs and their pilots on a daily basis. In my opinion there are two things that combine to make the fatality rate high in lancairs. They are extremely fast both in cruise and landing, and SO many people who buy them are new pilots who have way more money than experience. I’ve seen pilots with 60 hours in a C-172 flying a turboprop lancair.

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