A flight attendant died while a passenger on a romantic flight after her boyfriend’s vintage aircraft crashed into woodland.
Tragic Mandy Linder, 30, worked for TUI.
But she wasn’t working and was in the passenger seat of her partner’s Boeing Stearman PT-17, Kaydet when it plummeted from the sky.
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Mandy was killed instantly while her pilot boyfriend, 30, was taken to a local hospital.
He was admitted to the ICU with serious injuries and is “devastated with grief,” according to Mandy’s sister, Nathalie.
The couple went for a romantic evening flight close to Mandy’s home in Hasselt, Belgium, on Friday (28 Jun).
Locals spotted the Boeing Stearman PT-17 Kaydet flying very low over their houses.
Moments later, it crashed into an area of woodland, as reported on Need To Know.
Mandy worked for TUI as a flight attendant and had met her boyfriend, a commercial airline pilot, two years ago while travelling.
He had travelled from his home in West Flanders to pick Mandy up for the flight in his classic aircraft, which he had owned for just four months.
Nathalie, 31, recalled: “They often did that when the weather was nice.
“She even messaged me, ‘He came to pick me up and we’re going to fly over my garden.’
“She rented a little meadow in Kiewit, just five minutes from her house, where she kept some animals.
“She loved animals. She had goats, chickens, and peacocks.
“She wanted to fly over the meadow to see her animals from above.”
For reasons still unknown, something went wrong after they had flown two laps over Mandy’s meadow.
Nathalie told local media: “We don’t know exactly what went wrong, but her boyfriend is not to blame. He is an experienced pilot and acted as he should.
“He even directed the plane toward the woods to try to break the fall. It was truly a tragic accident.”
Mandy will be laid to rest in Eijsden on Saturday (6 July).
She is survived by her parents and her four-month-old goddaughter.
The crash remains under investigation by Belgium’s Air Accident Investigation Unit.
Pieter Strauven of the Limburg Public Prosecutor’s Office said: “For now, with the information we have, we are assuming it was a tragic accident.”
Nathalie added: “Mandy was full of life. Whenever she was around, there was always laughter.”
The Boeing Stearman PT-17 Kaydet is one of the most recognisable pre-WWII training aircraft.
Conceived in 1933, more than 1,000 models are still flying
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