The victims of the Florida mobile home plane crash have been identified.
Two people on the ground and the pilot were among the three victims.
On Saturday, police identified the three individuals who were killed in a small plane crash into a mobile home in Clearwater, Florida, on Thursday.
A single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza V35 crashed into a residential area in Bayside Estates, a large mobile home community, at 7 p.m. local time, causing a fire that damaged multiple surrounding homes. Video footage from the scene shows a massive fireball erupting from the park.
Jemin Patel, a 54-year-old man from Melbourne Beach, Florida, was the only person on the plane when he tragically died. The Clearwater Police Department has identified him as the victim.
Two other victims were on the ground when the plane crashed. Martha Parry, an 86-year-old Clearwater resident who lived in the park, and Mary Ellen Pender, a 54-year-old visitor to the mobile home, have been named as the two other victims.
Nine individuals were present in the mobile home on Pagoda Drive prior to the plane crash, but only two remained inside, according to police.
Police Chief Eric Gandy expressed condolences to the families of the three victims via a Facebook statement, stating that this tragedy could have resulted in even more casualties.
The National Transportation Safety Board will remove the wreckage on Saturday, and the police department will maintain the scene until then.
The plane had taken off from Vero Beach earlier in the day.
According to CBS News, Patel had informed air traffic controllers at the St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport of "some trouble" before the crash, while the Federal Aviation Administration stated that he had reported an "engine failure."
An audio recording released prior to the fatal plane crash provided evidence of the events that led up to the accident.
The pilot's conversation with air traffic control was recorded in an audio obtained by FOX 13 before the crash.
"The pilot is saying, 'I can't see the other airport,' and 'I'm losing an engine.'"
"Oh, f---," the pilot said.
Another pilot who observed the crash is heard reacting to the fiery collision that destroyed several mobile homes in the audio.
""The pilot stated that they crashed hard and are now on fire," he said."
It seems like there was a building fire. He mentioned going into a building.
The pilot in the three-and-a-half-minute recording is heard attempting to determine the precise location of the plane crash.
"I just saw him going down at an extremely high rate of speed," the pilot said. "He is definitely into a house, a whole house is demolished."
At a news conference on Thursday evening, Clearwater Fire Chief Scott Ehlers stated that the fire had spread to three other homes.
US
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