Alfonso del Nodal, a Cuban truck driver who was traveling on Interstate-75 last Friday, directly witnessed the moment when a private plane crashed on the highway and his vehicle’s camera recorded the fateful moment.
Del Nodal explained in statements to Telemundo 51 that he was driving an 18-wheel truck when he saw in the driver’s rearview mirror a plane that was coming “very low,” something that surprised him because he knows that there is no airport nearby in that area.
“The moment I thought about it, I saw him next to my window… closer and closer… until he crashed, he fell”he detailed.
He says that, forced to stop due to the large ball of fire and smoke, his and other witnesses’ attitude was to get out of their vehicles and try to help, but the heat was too much.
“The smoke immediately reached the sky. The good people got down, but the heat wouldn’t let us, and when we reached the flare there was a second explosion on the ground…”described the driver, who has been on the road for 30 years and says he has never experienced anything like it.
Alfonso del Nodal says that he finally resumed walking, moving as far away from the area as possible, but he assures that he felt the high temperatures coming from the scene of the accident.
Three passengers managed to get out of the burning plane, but when questioned by another driver who crossed the lanes, they confirmed that the pilot and co-pilot were still in the burned aircraft. The fatalities were Murphy and Ian Frederick Hofmann, 65, who were charred to death.
Now the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the causes of the accident, for which it is examining the aircraft’s maintenance records and the expertise of the deceased pilot.
In his last words, the pilot confidently told an air traffic controller that the plane had lost both engines and that they would not reach the runway in time. The incident occurred around 3:15 pm on February 9 in the southbound lanes of I-75.
Three people escaped alive from the aircraft, a Bombardier Challenger 604 that had left the Ohio State University airport in Columbus, bound for Naples, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane He tried to land on the road but crashed into a vehicle near kilometer 107 and its front part caught fire, the Florida Highway Patrol reported. A witness to the incident said the plane’s wing dragged the car in front of his and pulverized it.
John Galiano, a former U.S. Navy pilot, said it is very rare for two engines to fail in any multi-engine aircraft. In this regard, he suggested that a flock of birds probably caused the accident or a defect or maintenance problem.
The plane was registered to Fort Lauderdale-based East Shore Aviation LLC, according to the FAA. Hop-a-Jet includes it in its fleet of charter aircraft.
