Two dead after plane crashes in Florida while attempting to transport hurricane relief to Jamaica
Two people were killed when a plane bringing much-needed supplies to storm-ravaged Jamaica crashed in Florida on Monday.
The Beechcraft King Air turboprop plane took off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport at around 10.14am headed for Montego Bay, and crashed into the pond of a gated residential neighborhood in Coral Springs soon after, narrowly avoiding homes as it went down, WPTV reports.
Shocking surveillance footage obtained by Local 10 News showed the small plane diving nose-first at a high rate of speed into the ground – taking out part of a fence in the wealthy Windsor Bay neighborhood – before it splashed into the water behind a resident’s pool.
‘We just see this black figure, it was a plane, going straight down,’ witness Marcos Lima recounted.
Moments later, he said he and others saw ‘pieces of the plane and body parts everywhere.’
Emergency crews responded within minutes of the first phone call about the crashed plane, and were on the scene at 10.19am – just five minutes after the plane took off, Coral Springs-Parkland Fire Department Deputy Chief Mike Moser said.
No victims were originally found as authorities conducted rescue efforts, and first responders then shifted to a recovery operation.
Police have since confirmed that two people were killed in the collision and there were no survivors onboard, but did not provide any further details about the occupants of the plane.
No injuries were reported on the ground.
Shocking surveillance footage caught the moment a small plane crashed into the pond of a residential neighborhood in Florida on Monday morning
‘There was no actual plane to be seen,’ Moser said. ‘They followed the debris to the water. We had divers that entered the water and tried to search for any victims and didn’t find any.’
The crash shocked residents in the upscale community, where it cracked one resident’s rear window and left canned goods and mangled plane parts sprawled throughout the neighborhood.
‘We heard a big explosion, we we saw all the water rise up in the air, we ran towards it to see what happened,’ David Ubegi told NBC South Florida.
‘We saw all the parts of the plane and some body parts along sides of the houses, and when police arrived we helped them look for body parts.’
Kenneth DeTrolio also told the Sun Sentinel that he and his wife were at their house when the plane crashed through their backyard, destroying his fence and ripping down multiple palm trees.
The impact of the crash, he said, left his yard scattered with debris and his pool and backyard ‘contaminated’ with fuel.
‘We heard the strangest sound,’ DeTrolio recounted. ‘I never heard anything like it before and apparently that was when this plane must have flown between my home and my neighbor’s home.’
Michael Barish, who lives across the pond from DeTrolio, meanwhile, was at the front of his house when the plane crashed. Hours later, his backyard was covered with police markers identifying spots where different pieces of debris landed.
Emergency crews sprang into action when a small turboprop plane crashed in a gated community in Florida on Monday
The plane narrowly avoided residential homes as it crashed into a residential pond
Chris Howes also shared how she heard what she thought sounded like a ‘rapid acceleration’ and then a boom.
‘The noise just didn’t fit anything I’d heard before,’ she said.
At first, Howes said she thought it may have been a car crash or an accident with a landscaping crew – but when she went outside and saw the hordes of police and fire rescue crews, as well as helicopters, she realized it was something more.
Meanwhile, Zane Smith said he, too, heard a loud boom and hhe and his business partner thought a bomb went off.
In the aftermath, he said, his business partner’s glass fell as what felt like a shockwave reverberated throughout the home.
The storm ripped the roofs off of some 120,000 buildings in Jamaica, affecting some 90,000 families
Hurricane Melissa devastated the island nation of Jamaica last month
Federal records show the plane is registered to International Air Services Inc, of Nevada, a company that markets itself as specializing in providing trust agreements to non-US citizens that enable them to register aircrafts with the FAA.
It had been manufactured in 1976, according to Federal Aviation Administration records, and is designed to hold between seven to 12 people, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
Flight tracking website FlightAware shows the plane made four other trips to Jamaica over the past week, but it is unclear who was organizing the trips.
Broward County in southern Florida, however, is home to a large Caribbean American community that sprang into action to collect relief supplies following Hurricane Melissa – a Category 5 storm that ripped the roofs off of some 120,000 buildings in Jamaica, affecting some 90,000 families.
One week later, more than 2,000 people were still reported to be in shelters.
The Coral Springs Police Department is now taking over the recovery efforts, as federal aviation officials investigate the cause of the crash.
In the meantime, police warned residents they may notice a strong odor of fuel in the air, which may take time to dissipate.
‘The city strongly recommends residents in the area to avoid being outdoors and keep doors closed for the remainder of the night,’ the department said.
