Plane crashes near Fort Lauderdale's Executive Airport

sun-sentinel.com & news partner NBC 6 & Associated Press
Posted June 13 2005, 4:05 PM EDT


FORT LAUDERDALE – An airplane crashed in a residential area near Executive Airport Monday afternoon. It was not immediately known if anyone was hurt.

The plane crashed on the 1700 block of Northeast 56 Street around 3:50 p.m. just after takeoff from Executive, news partner NBC 6 reported.


The DC-3 twin-engine propeller cargo plane, possibly a cargo aircraft, crashed in a residential area and firefighters were working to bring a fire under control.

Capt. David Erdman, of the Broward County Fire Rescue, said it wasn't clear how many crew members were aboard, if it was carrying passengers or if there were any casualties on the ground.

But television stations were reporting the pilot and at least one other person escaped both the crash and the fire that followed an emergency landing in a street.

``It's a cargo flight, a DC-3,'' said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Greg Martin.

Martin said the aircraft went down about three miles east of Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport shortly after departing.

``As much as possible it landed on a roadway,'' said David Rafter, the spokesman for Oakland Park Fire Rescue. ``I don't know if it caused incidental damage to structure (on the ground).''

Televised pictures showed firefighters putting out the fire with water and foam in a roadway in tree-lined, residential area, the burned out cockpit and cabin near several parked cars.

It was not immediately clear if anyone on the ground was injured, said Erdman.



http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl...=sfla-home-headlines

All survive cargo plane crash on Florida road
14 June 2005

MIAMI: A DC3 cargo plane crashed into a roadway and burst into flames near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, today and all three people on board survived, emergency officials said.

The pilot, the co-pilot and the lone passenger were taken to Holy Cross Hospital, where they were reported in fair condition. There were no reports of injuries on the ground.

The plane crashed in a residential area and television pictures showed the smoking aircraft largely destroyed, with firefighters extinguishing the flames.

"It appears like they went down in the roadway rather than into a building," a spokesman for Oakland Park Fire-Rescue said.

The aircraft had just taken off from Executive Airport, a general aviation facility near Fort Lauderdale's business district, and was en route to Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration said.

"We heard it take off and we looked over and we all knew right away it was in trouble," a witness said.

"It looked like it was either going horizontal or coming down ... then we heard the explosion and flames," another witness said.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3313342a12,00.html