Skyrace leader Hugh Targett is plane crash victim

THE chairman of Skyrace Tasmania, one of the State's biggest aviation events, remains in a critical condition in the Launceston General Hospital after his plane crashed late on Sunday afternoon. Hugh Targett chaired Australian National Air Races, the company that operated Skyrace during its heyday in the early 1990s when it attracted competitors from across Australia and overseas. The event started at the historic World War II Valleyfield airstrip at Epping, but moved to Launceston Airport where it attracted huge crowds until lack of funding saw it fold in the late 1990s. Mr Targett, 62, a Launceston solicitor, steered Skyrace into a nationally renowned event when it ran Australia's first pylon race, attracting top pilots of the calibre of Queensland's Guido Zuccoli. He was also Tasmanian Aero Club chairman from 1993 to 1998 and has been an enthusiastic aviator for about 10 years. Mr Targett took to the air himself about the same time that he completed the Monnett Moni plane in which he crashed at the weekend. He bought the US-designed plane half-finished from an interstate enthusiast and completed it as a labour of love in his Launceston backyard. A Launceston General Hospital spokesman confirmed yesterday that Mr Targett remained in a critical condition in an induced coma as doctors treated serious leg, chest and head injuries. Police said after the crash that Mr Targett had taken off successfully in the single- seater light aircraft about 5.35pm on Sunday but appeared to lose power after take-off. He turned the aircraft before it spiralled out of control, plunging 100m to crash into a paddock about 200m from Daveys Lane at Western Junction, 1km south-east of the airport. It is understood that Tasmanian Aero Club colleagues, who witnessed the crash, retrieved the wreckage of the plane from the paddock yesterday. A family member confirmed that the pilot in the crash was Mr Targett but declined to comment further.