A small plane that plummeted into a Pembroke Pines neighborhood in July, reviving an enduring safety debate about North Perry Airport, was caused by the pilot’s “inadequate preflight fuel planning,” a National Transportation Safety Board investigation found.
The pilot of the 1976 Cessna T337G, his wife and their two teenage daughters were approaching North Perry Airport the night of July 13 when they came crashing down into Pines Village, narrowly missing homes. The plane smashed through a tree before landing near someone’s front yard, and a group of neighbors quickly rescued the family of four, who walked away from the wreckage unscathed.
Nearly 200 people attended a town hall held by Broward County officials in August as a result of the crash and the safety discourse it resurged, the majority being frustrated residents of the neighborhoods surrounding North Perry Airport and pilots who rely on the airport. County officials have since taken several measures to address some of their concerns, including an ongoing bid for a new safety study.
Pilot confusion
Carlos Cardenas, 58, was flying back to the U.S. from Puerto Rico after a long trip to multiple Caribbean Islands, according to a statement included in the NTSB investigation. Prior to the crash, the plane did not have any mechanical issues and seemed to be operating normally.
Cardenas refueled before flying out of Puerto Rico and “believed he had topped off the fuel tanks,” the NTSB’s summary of his statement said.
“During the refueling process, he encountered confusion while converting fuel quantities from pounds to gallons,” the document said. “He reported that this confusion impacted his fuel planning and weight and balance calculations.”
When Cardenas took off from Puerto Rico, he believed he had enough fuel for the flight to South Florida, “however, upon later review, he acknowledged that he had likely miscalculated both the total fuel quantity and the aircraft’s takeoff weight,” the statement summary said.
The Cessna’s rear engine completely lost power as it was in its initial descent phase of the return flight due to fuel exhaustion, according to the NTSB’s final investigation report released Nov. 14. While the remaining second engine still had some power, it could not maintain altitude, the report said.
The pilot also had overloaded the plane by more than 500 pounds, which likely played a role in its inability to maintain altitude, the NTSB final report said. The two findings in the report are listed as “personnel issues.”
Cardenas is an experienced pilot with nearly 1,300 flight hours, the NTSB’s investigation report showed. He declined to comment when reached by phone Monday.
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Safety measures in progress
While North Perry Airport has been operating since the 1940s, a fulcrum of the current safety debate is whether the airport’s capacity is compatible with the dense community that now surrounds it.
Annual takeoffs and landings in the past two years far exceeded numbers it didn’t expect to have until 10 years from now, according to figures shared in a Pembroke Pines resolution urging the county to conduct a safety study in the aftermath of the July crash.
More than 400 aircraft and 11 flight schools are based at the airport, which in 2024 recorded more than 317,000 annual operations. And since 2019, there have been at least 33 crashes associated with North Perry Airport, according to statistics shared at the August town hall.
Most crashes are due to pilot errors while about 20% to 40% are related to mechanical errors, said Mark Gale, CEO of the Broward County Aviation Department, at the August meeting.
The fact that the most recent crash was due to pilot error doesn’t change the belief of outspoken critic Mayor Angelo Castillo that the airport itself could do more for safety, he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Monday.
“My bottom line has not changed,” he said. “My bottom line is make it safe or put it somewhere else. Be safe or be gone. We can’t run the city around an airport that has this frequency and variety of crashes. The lives of our residents and visitors and businesses are simply too precious for that.”
North Perry’s capacity is one aspect that will be reviewed in a planned upcoming safety study, according to a 30-day report county officials released after the August meeting.
Broward County Commissioner Alexandra P. Davis’s office said in an email Monday that since the town hall some of the measures that are in progress include:
- The Broward County Aviation Department has requested information from the Federal Aviation Administration on inspection and certification history for aircraft based at North Perry Airport.
- The Broward County Aviation Department has requested the FAA for extended air traffic control tower hours.
- County commissioners reinstated the North Perry Airport Community Advisory Committee and are taking applications.
- Two bids for an airport safety assessment and a lead emission screening are open and will close on Dec. 22.