A Belgian-Luxembourgish crew escaped injury after their Aerospool WT9 Dynamic light aircraft, registered F-JIGU, suffered a complete engine failure over the Black Sea on Wednesday.
The aircraft was flying under visual flight rules from Batumi, Georgia, to Ordu-Giresun, Turkey, as part of the Private Pilot Expedition to Georgia 2026. The failure occurred at an altitude of approximately 2,000 metres after departure from Batumi at 12:32.
Following unsuccessful attempts to restart the engine, the experienced pilot and his passenger, aged 55 and 69, decided against deploying the aircraft’s emergency parachute and instead performed a controlled ditching around four nautical miles northwest of Rize-Artvin Airport.
Another expedition aircraft returned to the area and circled above the survivors until Turkish rescue teams arrived at 13:04. Both men were recovered unharmed and taken to Kaçkar Hospital as a precaution. The aircraft was lost.
The Luxembourg Aeronautical Federation said the cause of the engine failure would be investigated and declined to speculate pending officially confirmed findings.
Nine light aircraft departed Luxembourg Airport on 29 August for the 7,400-kilometre non-commercial expedition, with additional participants joining along the route through Europe and Turkey. The group is due to return via Greece, Italy and France, completing the journey on 12 September.
Source: L’Essentiel (Luxembourg), Flightradar24.com