RIP Now that we know who he was - RIP Steve
You will always be remebered my me as the " gobbie / sprogg" Loet (Luitenant) that showed many of us old toppies and ex fighter jocks (inc Real Orca) how to be a great instructor.
I had the priveledge of being with Steve on instructors course in 95-96 I think it was - and the youngster cleaned us out and kept the trophies to himself.
RIP my friend - sadly the second time God decided to wrap you in HIS wings.
RIP
PS: Early days but I would appreciate funeral arrangements ASAP please.
From IOL :
By Murray Williams and Cindy Mathys
Steve Heugh had already cheated death once. And he believed the angels would now always be on his side.
Heugh, one of South Africa's finest aerobatic pilots, died on Tuesday when his plane smashed into a field on the Vergelegen wine estate in Somerset West just before 2.30pm.
He died instantly with his passenger, the trick plane's owner, Gerald Sweidan, founder of Pharos Medical Aid Plan Durban.
Pieces of Heugh's aircraft were scattered far and wide
Heugh, 40, also co-piloted Boeing 747s.
He leaves a widow, Sharon, son Ryan, eight, and twin daughters Lauren and Megan, six.
Heugh and Sweidan, who had taken off from Stellenbosch airfield, were flying a Russian-built I3 aerobatics aircraft, and Heugh was giving Sweidan his first lesson in aerobatic flying.
The cause of the accident is unknown, but Civil Aviation Authority investigators have already begun combing the site for clues.
Heugh's family has urged the media to refrain from speculation about the cause of the accident until the investigation is complete.
This includes a report that a farmworker saw one wing fall from the aircraft, then the other, before it plummeted to the ground.
On Tuesday Vergelegen's owners, Anglo American, barred the media from the estate.
But in a chilling repeat of history, the crash site is barely 4km from the place where father and son Peter and Charles Cilliers died a few years ago in a Skybolt aerobatics aircraft.
After Tuesday's crash, pieces of Heugh's aircraft were scattered far and wide. One of the wings reportedly landed close to a cross erected in memory of the Cilliers father and son.
For Heugh, flying the stunt plane came after a miraculous recovery. Then based in Johannesburg, he was a member of the SA Air Force's elite Silver Falcons team and, later, the Smirnoff Aerobatics Team.
In 2001 he was flying a Pitts Special when the engine stalled coming out of a loop. Calling on every ounce of expertise and experience, he nursed the plane back to the ground.
As the wheels hit the side of the runway they chipped the lip and snapped off. The plane cartwheeled into pieces but Heugh, critically injured, survived.
He spent weeks in intensive care, and over the past three years slowly regained the fitness to allow him to fly again.
Back behind the controls, he confidently believed he could never crash again.
In February he told the magazine SA Sports Illustrated: "From a stats point of view I've had mine and survived."
He believed the odds would always be on his side.