Wife of pilot Adam Heath who died in plane crash reveals his love of life, his girls and flying

The wife of a pilot who died in a horror plane crash on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast has revealed the awful moment she was told his aircraft was missing, her agonising wait for answers and how she helped rescuers find the wreckage.

The morning Adam Heath took his last flight, he kissed his wife Lucinda goodbye before eagerly rushing out the door, excited to spin through the skies in a Cessna-150 Aerobat.

“We’d always kiss each other goodbye and tell each other to have a good day - every day we did that,” Lucinda said.

Flying had been a lifelong passion for Adam and that morning he was thrilled to be soaring alongside skilled instructor Rory Blanning, who was taking the 46-year-old on his third aerobatics training session.

Adam Heath had 20 years’ experience as a pilot and had just started learning aerobatics. Picture: Facebook

It wasn’t until later that afternoon, when Lucinda had finished her nursing shift, that she checked her phone and saw the missed calls from the Sunshine Coast Aero Club.

“I called the club and they just said the plane was missing,” Lucinda said.

Bundling their three young daughters Jasmine, 12, Kelerah, 12, Madison, 9, into the car, Lucinda drove straight to the Marcoola flying school where they would spend four agonising hours waiting for news.

“I just kept saying to the girls, ‘they’re going to find him, he’ll be okay, he might just be a bit sore’,” she said.

Police and ATSB investigators at the scene of the crash near Cedarton, Queensland. Picture Lachie Millard

Emergency services had been searching for hours for the two-seater light plane when Lucinda was able to use the Find My phone app to help rescuers pinpoint the location of the plane.

The wreckage of the Aerobat was discovered in a heavily wooded property off Commissioners Flat Road at Peachester just before 9pm on June 23.

An initial investigation by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau showed Rory and Adam had only been in the air for 19 minutes.

Investigators are still trying to piece together what caused the crash that claimed both men’s lives.

While they don’t have answers, Lucinda says their family have been buoyed by a legion of happy memories of Adam, whose infectious sense of adventure and “zest for life” energised those around him.

Adam Heath with his wife Lucinda and three girls Jasmine, 12, Kelerah, 12, and Madison, 9. Picture: Supplied

“Whatever he did in life, he didn’t do it the normal way,” she said.

When Adam was 15, he moved to Ballarat and began handwriting signs out of his great grandmother’s shed.

To this day, one of the first signs Adam was commissioned to paint still sits outside the old Pancake Kitchen in Ballarat.

Over 30 years Adam built up his reputation in the sign industry, becoming one of the first in Australia to get a large format printer and later opening a Signarama franchise in Ballarat.

He became one of the largest in manufacturing and Lucinda said driving through the now bustling regional city today she can see his work everywhere.

Lucinda and Adam met on a blind date 20 years ago.

Adam met his match in 2001 when he was set up on a blind date with Lucinda at the old Mexican Terrace in Victoria Street.

Years later on their wedding day, they shocked friends and family with the news that they were pregnant with twins.

“Adam even said – ‘you know I don’t do things in halves’…Poor mum nearly had a heart attack,” Lucinda said.

Lucinda and Adam Heath on their wedding day in 2008.

Their three girls grew up learning to love the outdoors and flying, which had been part of Adam’s DNA.

“It was his happy place, he really loved it up there,” Lucinda said.

“His mum was a pilot and if he wasn’t up in a plane with her, he was out on the ground mowing the airstrip or riding his motorbike beside it.”

Every Sunday was “family fun day” in the Heath household and the girls would be taken mountain bike riding, motorbike riding, fishing or up in the plane.

“You know how most dads take kids for a Sunday drive? He’d take our kids up for a Sunday fly,” Lucinda said.

At the start of 2021, the family made the decision to move from Victoria to the Sunshine Coast after 10 years of persuasion from Adam.

“I think he was just excited that there was sunshine and he could get out to do the things he wanted to do without worrying about the weather,” she said.

“He’d say ‘I can fly every day of the year up here’.”

Adam was laid to rest on July 8 with a send off for the ages in his home town of Ballarat.

“The funeral was beautiful, all of his mates lined up motorbikes as a guard of honour and the aero club had two planes do a fly over,” Lucinda said.

In the weeks since, Lucinda says her messenger inbox has been filled with people reaching out to tell her stories about Adam.

One message a few weeks ago was from a young boy who simply told Lucinda: “I knew your husband because he helped me when I fell off my bike.”

“He’s just touched so many people I didn’t even know he knew,” she said.

“I knew he was amazing but when I hear all these random strangers and how he touched them it’s beautiful.

“He just didn’t hold back, he just lived life and lived for our family, so I’ve got to keep that going.”

*Friends and family of the Heaths have started a fundraiser to help support the girls as they try to navigate the next stage of their life without Adam. If you would like to contribute, visit their GoFundMe page.