A small aircraft crashed in a fiery explosion Friday morning near Boca Raton Airport, killing all three people on board and injuring one man on the ground, according to city officials.
According to NBC Miami 6, the crash happened around 10:20 AM EST. in the area of Military Trail and Glades Road, near Interstate 95. The Cessna 310 had just departed Boca Raton Airport en route to Tallahassee International Airport when it went down minutes into the flight. Boca Raton Fire Rescue Assistant Chief Michael LaSalle confirmed the fatalities and said the injured man, Pablo Tafur, sustained non-life threatening injuries when his vehicle was engulfed in flames caused by the wreckage.
“One gentleman on the ground, he hit a tree because of all the debris and the fire,” LaSalle explained. “It was from the fireball on the ground, he drove through apparently the fireball.”
Tafur, who was driving to work when the plane crashed in front of him, described the terrifying moment.
“I saw the plane fly low and continued through and next thing I know it’s on top, right in front of me and exploded, impacted right in front of my car and it crashed,” Tafur said. “I tried to steer out of the way but it was pretty much unavoidable. Got out of the car that was on fire, through the flames, and made it to safety.”
Debris from the crash was scattered across the roadway and nearby train tracks. The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner’s Office responded to the scene as authorities began collecting evidence.
Kurt Gibson, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, arrived Friday afternoon to lead the federal investigation.
“Our mission at the NTSB is to figure out what happened, why it happened and what we can do to prevent this from happening again,” Gibson said. He noted that the 1977 aircraft had only been airborne for eight to ten minutes before the crash.
Student pilot Jared Scarpato, who was at Boca Raton Airport, said there were early signs of trouble.
“Somebody said on frequency that they are declaring an emergency for a stuck rudder,” he said. “All we heard five minutes after was just sirens, sirens, so just devastating.”
Witnesses in nearby buildings described the plane flying unusually low before it dropped from sight and exploded.
“It basically came back, it was looking like maybe it was going towards the airport, approaching and from there I just saw it drop below the trees,” said Dillon Smith. “I heard the boom and basically shake of the windows simultaneously.”
Mayor Scott Singer called the incident a “tragic loss of life” and offered condolences to the victims’ families.
The crash came just one day after a fatal helicopter crash in the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey claimed multiple lives, drawing national attention to a string of recent aviation accidents under investigation.
Watch the report above for additional details.
