Flight Instructor berates student on social media before fatal crash

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Pilot Timothy A. McKellar Jr., 22, of Custer, and flight student Connor W. Quisenberry, 18, of Beaver Dam, died in the crash. McKellar’s Snapchat story begins with him on camera, shaking his head along with the caption, “me and this student should not get along if he was my full-time student. I’ve seen faster at the Special Olympics.” The camera then flips around to show flight student, Conner Quisenberry, who appears to be doing a pre-flight inspection. The video continues and McKellar is seen impatiently and audibly tapping his fingers on the outside of the plane while Quisenberry prepares for flight. With 8:39 p.m. on the screen, McKellar is heard saying, “C’mon.” He then indicates the pair has a three-hour flight ahead of them. The video then appears to show the plane moving down the runway. McKellar writes disparaging comments about Quisenberry, his student, calling him “Forrest Gump Jr” and writing that he’s not the smartest in his class. The video continues and the pair are in the air and as the story progresses, McKellar seemingly boasts about being harsh in his feedback to Quisenberry—once again referring to the teen as Forrest Gump. McKellar says Quisenberry responded to the criticism by saying, “I don’t mind you being hard on me. I know I need it.” The video then shows a preview of the final flight path from Bowling Green to Owensboro overtop radar showing severe storms heading toward their path. McKellar circles the storms and writes, “headed are [sic] way like a group of pissed off hornets.” That was the last snap. A replay of the flight from Flightradar24—a flight tracking application—appears to show a flight without incident, until the plane veers to the east, north of Beaver Dam and abruptly spirals through the air near Whitesville. The plane crashed in Ohio County—close to the Daviess County line, killing both McKellar and Quisenberry. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are both investigating the crash. Local investigators tell Spectrum News 1, federal authorities have a copy of the video. The video has many concerned about the treatment of the student and the decision to fly at night during severe weather. Spectrum News 1 spoke to the instructor who trained McKellar under the condition of anonymity. He said although the social media video is disturbing, both McKellar and Quisenberry are victims of what he calls a broken system. According to McKellar’s instructor, flight schools across the country are cutting corners on safety and allowing instructors to burn out, either for profit or for the sake of helping instructors get the required 1,500 hours of flight time required by the FAA to enter the airline industry. He added, it’s a measure meant to add safety to airlines, but said it has caused unsafe patterns at the academy level.

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