Aircraft Was Conducting Aerial Survey Of Black Bears

The pilot and passenger of a Piper J-3 Cub were lost Friday in an apparent stall-spin accident over Placid Lakes Airport near Lake Placid, FL.

WFLX Fox 29 reported pilot Mason Smoak, 33, and passenger David Maehr were killed on impact when the single-engine Piper went down shortly after 1200 local time. It was unclear at the time whether the aircraft was taking off or landing.

"The plane came out of the sky and went straight into the earth," Capt. Paul Blackman of the Highlands County Sheriff's Office said witnesses told him. "It apparently stalled, did a 360 and went straight down."

Smoak was a well-known local citrus grove owner and Maehr was a University of Kentucky associate professor of conservation biology on sabbatical.

According to the Archibold Biological Station in Lake Placid, they were conducting aerial surveys of Highlands County black bears when they crashed.

In a statement issued Saturday by M. Scott Smith, dean of the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Maehr had helped reintroduce elk to eastern Kentucky, and his research supported efforts to sustain black bear populations in Appalachia and the endangered panther in Florida.

Smoak, a third-generation citrus grove owner in Highlands and Hardee County, was serving as president of the Highlands County Citrus Growers Association and as chairman of the Heartland Agricultural Coalition.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the cause.

FMI: www.faa.gov