At Least 19 Die In Plane Crash Off Miami Beach
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MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A propeller driven seaplane carrying 20 people crashed just off Miami Beach within sight of the city’s high-rises yesterday, killing at least 19 of those aboard, authorities said. Witnesses said the plane exploded in flames as it came down, and the FBI joined the investigation.
Scuba divers and rescuers in speedboats struggled to reach the victims, but as evening fell, they found no sign that anyone survived.
The Chalk’s Ocean Airways plane – a twin-engine Grumman G-73T Turbine Mallard – went down around 2:30 p.m. after taking off from Miami for the island of Bimini in the Bahamas, the Federal Aviation Administration said. It hit the water within sight of the beach.
Amateur video obtained by CNN showed the main part of the aircraft slamming into the water followed by a flaming object trailing thick black smoke.
The Coast Guard said 19 bodies were found. The 1940s-era plane was carrying two crew members and 18 passengers, including three infants, authorities said.
Because of the witness reports of an explosion, the FBI sent agents to assist in the investigation, but there was no immediate indication of terrorism or sabotage, a spokeswoman for the FBI’s Miami field office, Judy Orihuela, said.
“It’s too soon to say whether we are going to get involved,” Ms. Orihuela said. “We’re just going to check it out.”
Chalk’s is a small air carrier that is not required to conduct federal security screening of passengers and their luggage, a federal security director at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, Dale Karlen, said.
With many schools already closed in advance of the holidays and Christmas week traditionally one of the biggest times of the year for tourism, the beach was relatively busy, and dozens of beachgoers saw the plane go down. Dozens more gathered to watch the rescue.
As Coast Guard helicopters hovered over the crash site, some surfers remained in the water, only a few hundred feet away. Some surfers used their boards to rush toward the spot where the plane went down.
Sandy Rodriguez, 14, said he saw the plane flying low with white smoke trailing from it and flames coming from the bottom. The right wing then fell off as the plane went down, he said.
“It exploded in the air and one of the wings flew out of there. The other part of the plane was on fire and it just went straight down,” a surfer who was in the water at the time, Maurice D’Giovianni, 42, said.
Coast Guard spokesman Dana Warr also saw the crash from the Coast Guard office on an island in a channel known as Government Cut that cruise ships and freighters take past South Beach into the Port of Miami.
“Everything looked normal, I saw the aircraft take off like it does every other times. I didn’t think anything of it when I saw the black smoke from the pier, until I then heard the Coast Guard alarms go off,” Mr. Warr said.
Coast Guard Captain James Maes said the main part of the fuselage was submerged in about 35 feet of water subject to strong tidal currents because of the narrow ship channel. Divers were continuing to search after dark for the final victim.
Ship traffic in and out of the port will be suspended indefinitely, Captain Maes added, including three large cruise ships that had been scheduled to depart yesterday afternoon.
The National Transportation Safety Board also sent a team to investigate.
The skies were cloudy, but there was no rain or lightning in the area at the time of the crash.
Garred Gadaon, 34, said his sister-in-law and her 13-year-old daughter were on the plane.
“We had a tragic death today with many of our family members and our friends. It doesn’t seem real. Chalk’s has always a safe plane for us,” he said while standing outside the Miami Beach Police Department.