Pat Epps has died
Pat Epps, the founder of Epps Aviation in Atlanta and one of the leaders in the recovery of Glacier Girl, a Lockheed P–38 Lightning World War II fighter plane from the Lost Squadron, has died. He was 91.
He founded a Part 135 charter company at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport, was a Mooney Aircraft dealer for Alabama and Georgia, and a driving force at the Southeast’s busiest general aviation airport.
With an affable smile, a warm handshake, and wind-blown gray hair, Epps could be spotted in the 2000s on ramps across the Southeast performing airshows in his red-white-and-blue aerobatic Beechcraft Bonanza F33C—at an age when many pilots would hang up their headsets.
Epps was inducted into the Living Legends of Aviation and the Georgia Aviation Hall of Fame, and led the Greenland Expedition Society, which recovered Glacier Girl under 265 feet of ice.
Epps’s father Ben was the first pilot in Georgia. His six sons and one daughter all became pilots. After soloing in a Piper J–3 Cub at age 16, Pat Epps graduated from Georgia Tech with a degree in engineering; was a flight test engineer for Boeing; and served in the U.S. Air Force as a co-pilot on the C–97 Stratofreighter, a predecessor of the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser.
He is survived by his wife and children.
AOPA Senior Photographer David Tulis contributed to this report.
