{"id":574846,"date":"2026-02-08T09:06:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T09:06:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/574846\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T09:06:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T09:06:16","slug":"father-pays-tribute-to-18yo-after-light-plane-crash-at-goolwa-south","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/574846\/","title":{"rendered":"Father pays tribute to 18yo after light plane crash at Goolwa South"},"content":{"rendered":"

The father of an 18-year-old has paid tribute to his “beautiful boy” who died in a plane crash south of Adelaide on Friday.<\/p>\n

Bas Scheffers said his son Tristan had recently finished year 12 and was on his way to earning his commercial pilot license.<\/p>\n

“Our beautiful boy who loved flying more than anything else spread his wings one last time on Friday,” Mr Scheffers said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“We are devastated and thankful for the support we are receiving from friends, family and the flying community who will all miss him dearly.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Tristan Scheffers has been described as a “beautiful boy who loved flying more than anything else”. (Supplied by family)<\/p>\n

Emergency services had been called to the Long Bay area about 4:20pm on Friday after reports of a light plane crashing into the ocean.<\/a><\/p>\n

The 18-year-old died alongside 53-year-old Leo Howard, from Morphett Vale, and a 20-year-old from Pasadena.<\/p>\n

Mr Howard’s family provided a statement on Saturday afternoon<\/a>, with his sister Mercedes Howard describing him as a “highly respected and experienced pilot” as well as a “loved family man, son, father and brother”.<\/p>\n

“We are devastated at this time and send our condolences to the other families involved,” she said.<\/p>\n

Investigators from the Australian Transport and Safety Bureau (ATSB) have launched a safety investigation into the incident.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Leo Howard has been described as a “highly respected and experienced pilot”. (Supplied by family)<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Premier Peter Malinauskas described the incident as a “tragedy” and said three families were “dealing with a lot of heartbreak”.<\/p>\n

“I feel for all the families involved, particularly parents,” he said.<\/p>\n

“No parent wants to be in a situation like the one that some families are now confronting and the whole state’s thoughts are with them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The father of an 18-year-old has paid tribute to his “beautiful boy” who died in a plane crash…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":574847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[19031,89404,4740,89403,19032,249591,188713,50,57315,5884,249590],"class_list":["post-574846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-aircraft","tag-atsb","tag-australia","tag-australian-transport-safety-bureau","tag-flight","tag-leo-howard","tag-light-plane-crash","tag-news","tag-pilot","tag-plane-crash","tag-tristan-scheffers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116034220189576008","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=574846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/574846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=574846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=574846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=574846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}