Background
A pilot, flying a private aircraft, was denied a Special VFR clearance to land at Tampa-St. Petersburg. Subsequently, he elected to cancel his flight plan to Tallahassee and instead fly to New Orleans.
Sequence of Events
Approximately 5.5 hours into the flight, the pilot decided to divert to Gulfport, Mississippi. He tuned in the Gulfport VOR on frequency 109.0 MHz. At that time, he had been flying a heading of 283 degrees at 190 DME. The OBS now read 005 degrees and 75 miles DME. After crossing the coastline, the pilot could not locate the airport and continued flying until fuel exhaustion.
The aircraft crashed in a swamp. The Greenville VOR is also on frequency 109.0 MHz and is located 226 miles east of the Gulfport VOR. The wreckage was found approximately 10 miles from the Greenville VOR station.
Aftermath
The aircraft was destroyed. The pilot's actions led to a navigation error due to the identical frequency of the two VOR stations, resulting in fuel exhaustion and the subsequent crash.