HART COUNTY, Ga. — Authorities have recovered the body of a pilot who crashed into a major border lake between South Carolina and Georgia over the weekend.
The Hart County, Georgia Sheriff's Office announced on Friday that the body of 55-year-old Todd Jeffrey Carrell had been recovered from Lake Hartwell the previous evening around 6 p.m.
Authorities had been searching for a way to recover the North Port, Florida man since his airplane, a Beechcraft B55, went down in the lake on Sept. 10.
The resulting search led to a concerted effort by agencies in two states, with Hart County authorities combining their efforts with dive and search crews from Anderson and Oconee counties in South Carolina.
The plane was ultimately found 121 feet below the surface of the lake and a remote underwater vehicle confirmed that there was a person inside the next day. However, the depth and position of the aircraft prevented the deceased from being recovered initially.
With the help of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), authorities were able to secure other companies and specialists to successfully remove the aircraft from the water.
For now, both the NTSB and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash and working to determine exactly what caused it to crash.