Four Killed In Martin County Plane Crash

[FiveO]

This is their 3rd fatal crash in 5 months. I know there are some on JC who know people over at Kemper...

RIP all.

Four Killed In Martin County Plane Crash

Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. -- Officials said four men were killed when a small plane crashed in a cow pasture near a luxury home development northwest of West Palm Beach.


Martin County Assistant Fire-Rescue Chief Henry Johnson said the Cessna 172 Skyhawk went down around 9 a.m. Thursday near a development of 20-acre equestrian homes known as Martin County Ranches, about 50 miles northwest of West Palm Beach.


Authorities said they found all four men still inside the upside-down plane. All of them had died during the crash, officials said. Their identities have not been released.

No one was injured on the ground and no homes or other buildings were damaged, WPBF reported.


The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash. The cause is unknown.


Johnson said the plane was possibly on its way to Lantana, but it is not yet known where it had come from.


The single-engine plane is registered to Rohan Aviation -- a trademark of Kemper Aviation, WPBF reported. A woman who answered the company's dispatch line in Lantana said there was no comment or information available.


Thursday's crash is the third fatal plane crash for the company in the last five months, WPBF reported. Kemper Aviation is a flight school that provides flight instruction, tours and plane rides out of the Lantana Airport.


Flight instructor Anders Selberg, 46, of Port St. Lucie, and pilot trainee Arjun Chhikara, 18, were killed when their Kemper Aviation single-engine plane crashed at the Quail Ridge Country Club golf course in Boynton Beach on Oct. 27. A third trainnee, Chandrashekhar Godghate, 38, was injured.


Authorities said the pilot reported engine failure before crashing into the quiet country club.


Cleon Alvares of Mumbai, India, a student pilot on a training flight, was killed on Dec. 8 when his single-engine Cessna 152 registered to Rohan Aviation collided with another plane about 14 miles northwest of Pompano Beach over the Florida Everglades, WPBF reported.


Henry Duckworth III of Waverly, Pa., the pilot of the other plane involved in the collision, was also killed.


Wreckage from collision crash was scattered over a quarter mile and both planes were submerged in water.



Previous Stories:

• December 11, 2007: Authorities Plan DNA Tests On Remains Found In Everglades
• December 10, 2007: Body Retrieved From Plane Crash Site In Everglades
• October 29, 2007: Two Killed In Small Plane Crash In Boynton

http://www.wpbf.com/news/15584101/detail.html

[BCTAv8r]

Very bad news. Sorry for the losses over at Kemper but I'm glad it wasn't at my school. I don't want to speculate as accidents obviously happen. But I hope the FAA/NTSB finds out what is wrong at the school and find a solution.

[MusketeerMan]

Gosh...terrible news. RIP.

3rd fatal crash?? Is this school huge or something? I'd think they'd be investigated by the FAA at this point, if not already.

[skidz]

Three fatal crashes in five months, wow! Shouldn't the FAA close the school for few months until they figure out what's going on there?

[BCTAv8r]

Damn, the pilot was the manager and chief instructor according to the Sun-Sentinel. Left behind a wife and two children.

[ComplexHiAv8r]

Wow! RIP

[charlie1017]

Sad... RIP

[wrxpilot]

Originally Posted by BCTAv8r

Damn, the pilot was the manager and chief instructor according to the Sun-Sentinel. Left behind a wife and two children.

He was also one of the owners. This is pretty terrible news, but what the heck is the deal with that school? This will probably finish them off now...

[Murdoughnut]

Four guys in a 172? Perhaps it was one of those 180 hp jobs. Very sad, though.

[Tiger815]

Condolences to the familes.

Another tough one to understand. Photo's showed a very short, straight ground scar indicating contact at a pretty steep angle, but not spinning. Looked too steep to have been CFIT, or a engine out landing attempt gone bad. Makes you wonder if there may have been a medical emergency or some other huge distraction on board, or perhaps it was a stall, spin that he almost recovered but ran out of altitude.

Unless there were witnesses, this will probably be another of those that sticks with you for a while as you try to learn from it.

[NickH]

I encountered one of their students once. The poor girl was on her first solo cross country and was looking for Stuart when she landed at our airport 100 miles away. I tried to help her out (in pidgin English), and called the school in the hope of talking to someone about training standards, and she was gone when I got back.

We all know corners are being cut in this industry with students from a certain part of the world. Hopefully these accidents are a symptom of the volume of training, rather than the quality.

[mikek123]

Originally Posted by MusketeerMan

Gosh...terrible news. RIP.

3rd fatal crash?? Is this school huge or something? I'd think they'd be investigated by the FAA at this point, if not already.

Not a big school at all. They had about 10 planes in the past. Just your normal small flight school.

[surreal1221]

RIP.

[Murdoughnut]

A very critical article about the school ... http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...MPER_0127.html

[FiveO]

Two of the guys were FAU students, a school employee, and what's already been said, the flight school owner.

[troopernflight]

What a surprise that they are still operating. A school here had an accident with one kid killed, and a law suit put them under.

[Murdoughnut]

Originally Posted by troopernflight

What a surprise that they are still operating. A school here had an accident with one kid killed, and a law suit put them under.

Not to mention, I can't think that an insurance company would continue to write policies for their aircraft. Perhaps the families of Indian students are less likely to sue - although I do remember a suit being mentioned from a survivor of an earlier fatal accident.

[JDMcFly]

Originally Posted by Murdoughnut

A very critical article about the school ... http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/co...MPER_0127.html

"In another instance last year, a mechanic smelled marijuana smoke in the cockpit of a Kemper plane two students had just returned."

awesome.*

The article is interesting. Throughout the whole thing Jeff Rozelle is defending the school in the face of all these crashes. Now he's dead because of one.

[mikecweb]

RIP.
I did one of those researcher flights when I was instructing down that way.

[SoCalAprch]

RIP to those involved. I was lucky enough to instruct some of the Indians and I feel the instructors pain/fears. I had some students who had 100 plus hours and I wouldn't sign them off for a Solo. Probably still working on their privates and have as many hours as some of the regional fos.

[BCTAv8r]

I got this in my university email:

Originally Posted by FAU EMAIL

I am deeply saddened to inform the University community that two Florida Atlantic University students and an FAU employee were among four people killed in a plane crash in western Martin County this morning. Damion Marx, 35, and another graduate student in the FAU Department of Biological Sciences in the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science were aboard the plane when it crashed. An FAU lab tech was also on board. The identities of the graduate student and the lab tech will not be made public until their families have been informed of this tragedy. The team was conducting an aerial survey of wading bird colonies in the Lake Okeechobee area when the airplane in which they were passengers crashed at about 9 a.m.

Also killed in the crash was the pilot, Jeffrey Rozelle. At this time, the cause of the accident is unknown. Investigations by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are under way.

Our deepest sympathy goes out to the families, friends and colleagues of the victims of this tragic accident.

[bLizZuE]

I hate hearing about this kind of stuff.

[deek]

Originally Posted by BCTAv8r

Very bad news. Sorry for the losses over at Kemper but I'm glad it wasn't at my school. I don't want to speculate as accidents obviously happen. But I hope the FAA/NTSB finds out what is wrong at the school and find a solution.

Hey, I think Jeff use to work the line at BCT, ask Christian or Mitch. I think I remember working with him.

[FiveO]

It always amazes me that the last thing in the world they were probably thinking about that morning is that they were going to die in a plane crash. I'm sure they were so thrilled to be able to get up there and get some first hand research... not to die.

I know this fits into any category of death, but it's so strange.

[BCTAv8r]

Originally Posted by deek

Hey, I think Jeff use to work the line at BCT, ask Christian or Mitch. I think I remember working with him.

Yep, quite a lot of the people there knew him.