The lone pilot who died in Bangor when he crash-landed his tiny single-engine Cessna was in the middle of a virtual circumnavigation when fate suddenly intervened.
Police Tuesday identified the victim as a 74-year-old man from Italy.
Luigi Accusani died while trying Friday to land at Bangor International Airport, and it was all caught on video by a 9-year-old Vassalboro boy.
Details have also since come to light about Accusani’s worldwide flight leading up to the accident that ended his Don Quixote quest.
The single-engine Cessna A185F, tail number N714HE, first landed in France on the previous Saturday, online flight records show.
The plane then flew to Wick, United Kingdom, from to Reykjavik, Iceland, and then to Narasuaq, Greenland.
The plane stayed in Greenland until Thursday when Accusani flew to Goose Bay, Labrador.
He then flew into Bangor from Labrador on Friday.
Accusani was so close, yet so far, from safely completing the latest leg of his incredible international journey in a tiny plane.
He actually was taxiing after touching down in Bangor when for unknown reasons he lost control of his plane.
Just as it reached the tree line at the end of the runway, Accusani seemed to be trying to do a go-around.
But the plane seemed to do a steep sideways dive as he tried to gain lift, then cartwheeled and went nose-first into the ground.
Jaxon Cook, 9, who was with his mother at the airport to watch planes land, happened to be videotaping as the Cessna tried to land.
