Pilot and passenger killed when their plane crashes into an occupied Miramar house

MIRAMAR — Two people are dead after a small plane crashed into a Miramar house occupied by a mother and her 2-year-old child just before noon on Monday, Miramar police said.

The aircraft came to a rest nose-down between a home and its surrounding fence in the 2200 block of Jamaica Drive. The crash was about seven blocks south of North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines.

Henry Flores, who owns the home where the plane went down, said his wife was with their 2-year-old son when she heard a loud noise.

Neighbor Selma Rollero described a similar sound. “I heard an explosion,” said Rollero, who lives in the house behind the crash site. “I ran out to the street.” She said she didn’t know it was an airplane at first, but police showed up quickly, directing neighbors to leave the scene.

The plane got caught in “live electrical wires” after the crash, Tania Rues, a spokesperson for Miramar Police, said in an email Monday evening.

The two people who died are the plane’s pilot and passenger, according to Miramar Mayor Wayne Messam.

Both were adult men, Rues said. The plane was not based out of North Perry Airport but took off from there about 11:30 a.m.

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Messam said authorities believe the plane was relocated to Perry to avoid Hurricane Ian. . The registered owner lives in Virginia, according to available records, and his listed phone number is disconnected.

The plane appeared to be pointed straight down with its fuselage intact. According to official records, the plane is a fixed-wing, single engine “Adventura II” aircraft built in 2008 by Peryera Arnet.

Donovan Russell was working on a house across the street and had gone to this truck for some tools when he witnessed the plane going down. He heard a popping sound in the air, so he looked up and saw the plane “gliding down.” He heard the engine turn off and saw the plane hit the home.

”It went ‘boom,’ but there was no smoke, no fire,” Russell said.

Another witness said it sounded as if the pilot was trying to restart the engine.

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FPL has shut off power to the grid in that area due to leaking fuel, affecting 35 homes.

The incident revived a continuing debate about the safety of living so close to North Perry Airport, which was constructed at a time few homes surrounded the area.

“It’s a danger, man,” Flores said. “If the baby had come out, what would have happened? Or my wife?”

Neighbor Peggy Brutas expressed concern about the proximity of the airport. She said she’s not sure how officials regulate the routes, but she insisted something has to change. ”I’m saddened by what happened and the lives lost,” she said.

Late Monday afternoon, the neighborhood was waiting. Neighbors gathered with the homeowner, wondering when the power would be restored and when the plane would be removed. The two men’s bodies were recovered by Monday evening, Rues said, but the plane will stay until released by the National Transportation Safety Board which is investigating.

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North Perry was built in 1943 as a federal training facility for pilots heading off to World War II. The surrounding communities are home to largely working-class people and families.

The airport near University Drive and Pembroke Road in Pembroke Pines and the surrounding areas have been the site of a large number of plane crashes. Some of the most recent:

• March 15, 2021: A six-seater airport crashed onto an SUV on Southwest 72nd Avenue, killing a boy who was in the car as well as two people in the fiery crash. It had just taken off and was returning to the airport after an apparent mechanical problem when it clipped a power line and landed on the vehicle.
• Dec. 17, 2020: Four people aboard a single-engine plane survived a fiery crash when their plane hit a tree and a fence in a housing development a mile west of the airport shortly after takeoff.
• Dec. 2, 2020: Two people survived when a single-engine plane trying to make an emergency landing instead crash-landed upside down on an airport runway. Neither the pilot nor the passenger were hurt.
• Nov. 23, 2020: A pilot was killed after his single-engine plane had engine trouble shortly after takeoff. The crash occurred as the pilot was approaching a runway to return to the airport.
• May 12, 2020: A pilot-in-training died and his instructor/passenger injured when they tried to return to the airport with a plane that had apparent mechanical problems. Instead, the plane clipped power lines as they tried to land on Pembroke Road near a Publix.

Staff writers Lisa J. Huriash, Kathy Laskowski and Angie DiMichele and photojournalist Joe Cavaretta contributed to this report.

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