Student Killed, Instructor Injured in Plane Crash at Miramar Shopping Center
An aviation student was killed and his instructor seriously injured after their small plane crashed Tuesday at the entrance to a Miramar shopping plaza with a Publix, Chase bank branch and 7-Eleven gas station. One person on the ground was injured.
The twin-engine plane crashed and caught fire around 9 a.m. at the Miramar Commons shopping center. It went down about 350 yards from the Pembroke-Hiatus Road intersection, 170 yards from the Publix and close enough to char the sign of the Chase bank branch at 11100 Pembroke Road.
Police identified the student late Tuesday afternoon as Miramar resident Mark Daniel Scott, 25. His flight instructor, whose name has not been disclosed, remains at Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood with serious injuries. A third person, struck by crash debris, was treated on the scene by Miramar Fire Rescue.
Scott was an “advanced student” at Wayman Aviation Academy and was piloting a training flight with one of the academy’s senior instructors, according to an academy spokesman. The academy is based at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines and at Opa-locka Executive Airport.
The pair had just departed North Perry when they began to experience mechanical issues, according to police.
“We had a senior student, just about to complete his training with us and an experienced instructor flying out this morning. They had some trouble and followed all the emergency procedures. It seems like chance was not with them this morning,” Eddy Luy, the academy’s vice president, told Miami Herald news partner CBS4. “The instructor is in stable condition and hopefully will be just fine. Our thoughts are with the student pilot’s family. He did not make it.”
Sid Severe, 53, said he was on his way to work at about 8:15 a.m. when he saw the plane flying close to traffic.
“I saw the plane unusually way low. It was wavering; it looked like it was in trouble,” said Severe, who lives at an apartment complex across from Miramar Commons.
Dashcam video provided to the Miami Herald shows the Piper PA-34 clipping power lines moments before crashing on the south side of Pembroke Road, into the trees and bushes bordering the Chase parking lot. The plane narrowly avoided the roof of a 7-Eleven gas station across from the bank. Police say they began getting calls at 8:58 a.m. from people who saw the crash.
Neighbors and employees from the nearby Publix were gathered behind the caution tape at the crash site Tuesday afternoon to take pictures of the debris and the burned-up Chase bank sign. A couple dozen shoppers walked to and from the nearby grocery store with their carts, as investigators evaluated the plane’s remains from the morning crash a few feet away.
“It was normal traffic and people stopped because they were like, ‘What the heck?’... It was really fast,” Severe said in front of the crash site, which still smelled like smoke in the early afternoon. About a handful of onlookers stood by and speculated about the plane’s malfunction. One pointed out the plane appeared to hit some power lines in the area, but narrowly missed the nearby gas station.
“I think it was luck,” one man said.
Helicopter video from Total Traffic Miami earlier in the day showed the burning plane in the trees and bushes bordering the Chase parking lot. Firefighters sprayed the area around the plane, trying to extinguish the flames as smoke filled the air. Other video of the scene showed firefighters covering an area of the crashed plane with a yellow tarp. The plane has a large “W” printed on one of its wings.
Based on the preliminary investigation, the “pilot told air traffic controllers that he was attempting to return to the airport when the aircraft went down,” according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Miramar police confirmed the pilot likely was trying to land the plane on Pembroke Road.
Miramar and Pembroke Pines police shut down lanes on Pembroke and Hiatus roads and redirected traffic through the shopping center parking lot.
Because of the damage to power lines, the crash also caused momentary outages, affecting about 2,500 customers nearby, according to Florida Power & Light spokesman Doug Andrews. Power was fully restored in less than hour, Andrews said.
The FAA says it is investigating the crash. The National Transportation Safety Board will later determine the probable cause of the accident.
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