FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- Six persons died Tuesday when two light planes crashed after colliding in flight over a suburban general aviation airport.
Firemen removed five bodies from the burning wreckage of a twin-engine plane that plummeted into an industrial area parking lot, then hours later found a fifth victim in the smouldering debris.
The pilot of a single-engine plane involved in the aerial collision died at Northridge Hospital a little more than an hour afterward. He was identified Tuesday night as Kirk Kingsley, 17, a suburban Oakland Park high school student..
The five victims aboard the twin-engine Cessna 421 were identified as Dale Hyatt Sr., a Fort Lauderdale trucking executive, his father, Alvia H. Hyatt, Charles Beets, a friend of the elder Hyatt, Dave Benton, a mechanic who worked for Dale Hyatt and pilot Willie Williams.
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'A flight plan showed the (larger) plane had flown over to Bimini (Bahamas) and was returning,' said Sgt. Frank Schuler, a police spokesman. 'If it picked up other people over there it will be difficult to find out who was aboard.'
He said the bodies were badly burned.
The Federal Aviation Administration in Atlanta said the two planes collided about 75 to 100 feet above Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. Kingsley, practicing touch-and-go landings, had been cleared for takeoff while the larger plane was making a final approach for landing on the same runway.
FAA tower operators, seeing that the twin-engine craft was overtaking the single-engine plane, ordered the larger aircraft to veer to the right and go around before landing.
The order either was not heard or came too late. The single-engine plane, lifting off the runway, struck the underside of the the twin-engine craft.
Kingsley's plane plunged onto the runway and came to rest on its back. The twin-engine plane, with one engine knocked out, attempted to circle back to the airport, but crashed several blocks away.
'The fire engulfed nine cars in the parking lot, but no one was in or around the cars when the crash occurred,' Schuler said.
'The single-engine Cessna 172 had been cleared for takeoff from runway 31 on touch-and-goes and the twin-engine Cessna 421 was on final approach for runway 31, sequenced behind the Cessna 172,' said FAA spokeswoman Jeri Cook.
But it soon became obvious that the larger plane was overtaking the smaller, she said, and 'the 421 was advised to go around and stay to the right side of the runway to clear the runway.
'Apparently the 172 single-engine aircraft drifted over and lifted up beneath the 421 twin engine aircraft. They came together about 2,500 feet down the runway,' she said.
The FAA would not say whether the pilot of the 421 obeyed the instructions to scrub his landing and avoid the smaller plane.
Police said Tuesday night they had a tentative identification of the pilot of the single-engine plane, but withheld it for further checking.
Investigators were attempting to contact the owner of the twin-engine Cessna in hopes of learning the identity of those aboard. They said the bodies were badly burned.
