Differing opinions on Saturday’s plane crash – the first fatality the DeKalb airport has seen in probably 20 years – paint the pilot from being competent to careless.

Mark Morgan’s abilities are being questioned because it is unclear if the home-built plane he bought earlier this year was blown over by the wind or if a blotched barrel-roll on takeoff caused the crash.

“We felt he was flying in an unsafe manner,” said Robert Weber, refering to a time he and a group of friends saw the pilot in Rochelle in early October. Weber, a medical doctor and a pilot since 1963 who gives pilots their physicals, said Morgan was known for doing barrel-rolls on takeoff.

But Mark Bressen, the owner of Bresen’s Flying Service and a flight instructor, disagrees.

“I’ve been hearing the rumor that he was unsafe – but I don’t know where that’s coming from.

“The only time I’ve seen him do a roll is high in the air. I’ve never seen him do a roll on takeoff,” Bressen said.

Morgan was pronounced dead by Deputy Coroner Earl Tischler at the DeKalb Taylor Municipal Airport. Morgan’s one-engine Pitts crashed on takeoff. Records at the DeKalb library don’t list a fatal crash at the airport in the past two decades.

“He was careless,” Weber charged. “Whether you can apply that to what happened Saturday, I don’t know. My impression of him as a pilot was that he was careless and reckless in maneuvering.”

The Pitts, considered an experimental aircraft used for aerobatics, has about a 20 foot wingspan and is about 14 feet from tip to tail. The plane can reach up to 250 mph in a dive and cruises at about 115 mph.

“Your talking about a cheap Mercedes,” said Jack Bennet, a retired NIU Biology Professor with more than 20 years of pilot experience.

Compared to a factory-made model, home-built planes are structurally sound, he said.

Morgan, 32, of Lombard, took-off from Rochelle where he kept the plane.

Federal Aviation Administration officials are investigating the crash and secured the wreckage at one of the airport’s hangars, said Mike Carey, vice president of R and M Aviation, the DeKalb airport operator.

Carey said it would be years before the FAA figures out what happened. FAA officials were unavailable for comment.

Saturday’s spring-like temperatures showed about a 10-mph wind from the Southwest, Carey said.

Bennet spectulated that Morgan either tried the roll on purpose or the wind “started him over and he decided to finish the job.

“I can see how a skilled aerobatic pilot would see how he could do that,” he said.

Experience aerobatic pilots doing barrel-rolls on takeoff are common at air shows, Bennet said. He said FAA rules prohibit stunts near an airport without a special permit.

It is unclear how many flight hours Morgan has logged on airplanes or how experienced he was with aerobatics.

The airport was closed for about 90 minutes while emergency crews from the DeKalb Police and Fire departments responded to the crash that occured less than the length of two football fields north of the runway.

Morgan’s body was burnt beyond recognition after the plane exploded on impact. “What really happened? – nobody knows,” Carey said.