Clearwater plane crash: 911 callers describe moments plane plunges into mobile home park, killing 3
CLEARWATER, Fla. - The Clearwater Police Department released 911 calls that came in the night when a small plane crashed into a mobile home park, killing the pilot and two others on the ground.
The crash also damaged several homes inside the Bayside Waters mobile home park, which is along busy U.S. 19, south of the Clearwater Mall. The Beechcraft Bonanza V35 left behind destruction in the densely populated area.
The Clearwater Fire Department was already on their way to the scene when Clearwater police received a 911 call from neighbors who saw the crash, but they weren't sure what fell out of the sky until much later.
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"Something just fell out of the sky and exploded on the trailer park across from us, and now it's getting huge. Like, it's getting huge," the neighbor told the 911 operator.
"Alright. Okay, so you didn't see if it was like maybe a firework or anything like that?" the 911 operator asked the caller.
The neighbor who called 911 can be heard asking others around her what they saw, and eventually, handing the phone to a man who also witnessed the crash.
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"Um, so – it looked like a – I thought I just saw a helicopter flying far away, but it was, I guess, something smaller, a little closer and had some lights, and it flew down and crashed," he told the operator.
"Like a drone maybe?" the dispatcher asked.
"I don't know. It might be like a large drone, like one of the – but I don't know exactly. It had lights. But, uh, yeah, it made a big fireball," the man said in the 911 call.
The 54-year-old pilot, Jemin Patel of Melbourne Beach, had taken off from Vero Beach and was en route to Clearwater Air Park when he issued a distress call, reporting engine failure. He tried to make an emergency landing at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport.
However, three miles short of that, the plane plunged straight into the Clearwater mobile home park. It made a direct impact with the home of 86-year-old Martha Parry, killing her and 54-year-old Mary Ellen Pender of Treasure Island.
The pilot also died in the crash.
The fire caused by the plane crash spread to three neighboring homes, but the people who were inside those homes got out safely.