City of Boca Raton officials identify the names of the three people dead from Friday’s plane crash near the city’s airport.
“Three souls on board,” said Michael LaSalle, public information officer for the City of Boca Raton fire rescue. “We can confirm those were all fatalities.”
Police say Robert Stark, 81, Stephen Stark, 54, and Brooke Stark, 17, were onboard a Cessna 310 plane when it crashed and erupted into a fireball near North Military Trail and Glades Road Friday morning.
Video from a flight tracking service shows the plane’s trajectory, only pivoting to the left.
Authorities say around 10:12 a.m., a call was heard about a malfunction on the plane. Minutes later, at 10:20 a.m., the plane crashed near the I-95 expressway.
“We saw him make his turn to come in to land,” says Lynn University aviation student Jared Scarpato. He overheard the transmission of the malfunction from the other side of the runway of his flight school in Boca Raton.
“He unfortunately was too low,” Scarpato added.
Officials did conform Pablo Tafur as the person on the ground suffering non-life-threatening injuries.
He says his car hit a tree from the debris of the wreckage and he ran through the flames to escape.
“I ran through the flames to get out and then made it to safety,” said Tafur.
Tafur was sent to a nearby hospital for treatment of first-degree burns.
People nearby saw the crash and recorded the aftermath. Brian Nelson, a chef at Gallaghers Steakhouse, was sitting on the restaurant’s outside seating area when the plane crashed.
“I felt the ground shake,” said Nelson. “When I stood up, you could see the flames and the smoke right across it.”
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.
