Investigators reveal details of Florida plane crash that killed Queensland’s Kath family

Investigators have shed more light on a light plane crash that killed three members of a Queensland family in Florida.

A light plane carrying an Australian couple and their 12-year-old daughter crashed off the coast of Florida just 16 seconds after taking off, according to a preliminary probe of the tragedy.

Christian Kath, his wife Misty and their daughter Lily died in the accident earlier this month, leaving behind the couple’s 10-year-old daughter who was sleeping over at a friend’s house.

The National Transportation Safety Bureau’s report, released on Wednesday (AEDT), found there were “no pre-impact mechanical anomalies that would have prevented normal operation” of the plane’s engine.

Mr Kath had flown the family to the coastal city of Venice for dinner before they sought to head home to St Petersburg.

The wreckage at the site of the crash. Picture: Supplied

According to the bureau’s report, the plane only reached an altitude of 23m after taking off from a 1524m runway and heading over the Gulf of Mexico.

It then hit the water approximately 548m beyond the edge of the runway.

“Airport surveillance video from the time of the accident depicted an airplane departing runway 23 with little to no angle of climb into a dark sky over dark water with no discernible horizon,” the report said.

The family, from Gympie in Queensland, had been living in the US for five years.

In March, Mr Kath posted on Facebook to celebrate his first solo flight, thanking his wife for her patience with his “early morning lessons and late night studying”.

“It will all feel worth while when we can fly to the Keys for a weekend away,” he said.

The bureau’s report said Mr Kath, a successful businessman, had 74.2 hours of experience in the air including 67.6 hours in the plane that crashed.

He had received his private pilot certificate on July 31 and accrued 13.5 hours of flying experience since then.

The plane, which was built in 1976, had passed a 100-hour inspection only a month before the tragedy.

Mr Kath’s Gympie-based father Chris told Channel 7 his son was “not a risk-taker in any way, shape or form”.

Christian Kath had been piloting the plane when it crashed. Picture: Supplied

“He wasn’t a long-time, seasoned pilot. He was relatively fresh, you can say,” he said earlier this month.

“Who knows what went wrong – if it was pilot error, and I’m acknowledging that it possibly was … But it’s just one of those things.”

The Kath family had reportedly been preparing to move back to Australia to send their daughters to school before the accident.

Their surviving 10-year-old daughter had been trying to contact her mother and sister the morning after the crash to pick her up from her sleepover.

She will now be raised by her grandparents in Australia, according to a family friend.