Coast Guard: He Had A History Of Risky Flights

The body of a man thought to have crashed in his experimental amphibian Sunday morning was recovered Tuesday from the waters off the North Carolina coast. He was one of two people lost when the Seawind 3000 went down.

"He was such a free spirit with that plane (file photo of type, below)," Kelly Holsten told the Wilmington Star-News. "I saw him do several touch and go's in Banks Channel that just floored me. He looked like he was a good pilot, but I will say that he definitely had taken his plane to the edge. When I heard that the plane had gone down I had a feeling that, that was the person. He was a daredevil to say the least."

As ANN reported earlier, the aircraft went down in the Atlantic near Wrightsville Beach on Sunday. The body of a woman not yet publicly identified was found near the wreckage Sunday afternoon.

The pilot, 56-year old Bracey Bobbit, a pharmacist who'd just moved to the shore from northwestern North Carolina, was well known to the local Coast Guard contingent.

"We received a number of complaints at different times," Petty Officer James Lewis told the News-Star. He said most complaints concerning Bobbit's flying centered on low altitudes. "We just stopped him the 10th of August. We approached him when he landed, but he was compliant with all our federal laws as a boat. We don't have jurisdiction in the air."

FMI: www.ntsb.gov