It was to be a simple plane skip, a five-minute jump to end a birthday trip for a father, and a Bahamas vacation for his son and a young companion. In seconds it turned into a death flight.
"We saw him take off and then heard the engine stalling, that's why I kept watching," said Justin Brozic, who was working on a pickup truck at Hot Rod Connection's warehouse across the street from the airport.
"Then I saw the propeller stop and he lost altitude, and then it started again. He was banking to the left, like he was trying to turn it back when it went straight down, a vertical drop right into the roof of the building."
Paul Arthur Butler, 65, of the 2700 block of Northeast 26th Terrace in Fort Lauderdale, was at the controls of the single-engine aircraft when it speared the roof of an auto body shop about 500 feet from the runway. He was killed instantly.
His son, Todd Butler, 21, and Stephanie Schambon, 19, were his passengers. Schambon was taken to Broward General Medical Center where she was pronounced dead. Todd Butler was taken to North Broward Hospital where he was in critical condition late Wednesday. The fatal crash struck hard in South Florida business and philanthropy circles where Butler's wife, Gale Butler, is a prominent figure.
Family and friends gathered at North Broward Hospital on Wednesday afternoon.
"We very much appreciate the outpouring of your support just with your presence today," said family friend Jane Katterhenry. "However, as you might imagine we need to have some time to sort through the details and to focus our energy on the family."
Miraculously, no one inside the building, Stuttgart International Auto Body Collision, was injured.
"We heard this loud bang and a huge explosion," said Claudia Bussone, whose father, Gene Degollada, has owned the business for 12 years. She was in the body shop with her young daughter and son.
"We didn't know what it was. I went to see and the whole roof collapsed," said Bussone. "I didn't see the plane yet. All I thought of was getting my kids and everyone out of the building. So we just went out ... That's when we saw the wing of the plane."
Workers Maurice and Mike Nast came running with fire extinguishers, expecting the plane to burst into flames.
"The people inside the plane were trying to move," Maurice Nast said. "I said, `Please! Please! Don't move.' They weren't saying anything. They were in shock."
Arriving firefighters pulled the two survivors from the wreckage, said Fort Lauderdale Fire Division Chief Stephen McInerny. Medics performed CPR on Schambon as they rushed her to Broward General Medical Center, but they could not save her.
Battalion Chief Christopher Weir said there was a real potential for the plane to have burst into flames after crashing into the building. The body shop had several cars inside along with paint supplies and chemicals for body work.
"Two fatalities is two too many already," he said. "We're just glad we didn't have a worse disaster."
Firefighters and city structural engineers stayed on scene long after the crash and closed the building.
"We deemed it unsafe because there's a large gaping hole in the roof," Weir said.
Stuart Sklar, a commercial photographer who witnessed the crash, called the scene inside the body shop "surprisingly clean."
"There was no smoke or fire or even any smell of anything burning," said Sklar, of Fort Lauderdale. "The wreckage was concentrated right in the middle of the floor."
Paul Butler turned 65 on Wednesday. His wife, Gale Butler, is a prominent figure in South Florida. As the communications director for such business giants from Citizens & Southern Bank, then Blockbuster Video, and as vice president of corporate affairs with AutoNation, she sits on the boards of several of Broward County's nonprofit agencies.
"Gale always regarded her family as the private part of her life because she's always out there in the public. Her family is her retreat," said Ezra Krieg, director of special events at Kids in Distress and a friend of the Butlers for the past 20 years.
Krieg said that Paul Butler worked with a food distribution company and often contributed to the Daily Food Bank.
"She and her family have touched so many lives. I know the whole community's heart is with her."
Todd Butler and Schambon were both students at the University of Central Florida, where they shared a three-bedroom house with another roommate, Kyle Massimo, 20. Massimo said his roommates had planned a weeklong trip to the Bahamas that was to end Wednesday.
Schambon, of Windermere, was three days shy of her 20th birthday.
Paul Butler took off from Pompano Beach Air Park early in the morning, before the tower opened, to pick up his son and Schambon.
On the return trip, the three had to land at Executive to clear customs.
After getting clearance, they took off on Runway 13, heading southeast for the short, five-minute flight back to the Pompano Beach Air Park, according to Steve Malin, a 14-year member of the Pompano Senior Squadron Flying Club that owned the aircraft.
"We don't know what caused the plane to crash," Malin said. "That's for the [National Transportation Safety Board] to determine. We've had an excellent safety record. We've been around for 30 years."
The four-seat Piper Archer is one of three planes owned by the club, which has 45 members of all ages and walks of life, including retired airline pilots. It has been in existence since 1972, said James Sherman, a pilot and the club's treasurer.
"Basically, it's a social club," said Sherman, who has been a member since 1982.
The members split the expenses on the three planes, and "even with 45 members, believe me, it's expensive." They meet every second Wednesday of the month.
Anthony Aviation maintained the plane that crashed. It had recently had a major annual inspection, Sherman said.
"The airplanes are really meticulously maintained," he said.
Sherman said club members frequently fly to Executive Airport because it's only five minutes away by air. They can practice instrument approaches there, or sometimes they just stop for lunch.
Pilots consider the Piper Archer easy to fly, sturdy and reliable. It is a member of the popular Piper Cherokee family, which has about 20,000 various models flying, according to the Aircraft Owner and Pilots Association.
In general, Piper Cherokees have a good safety record, the association says. It found that 1,725 Cherokee accidents between 1982 and 1999 were because of pilot error, 198 were blamed on maintenance problems and 197 on other factors. Piper Cherokees otherwise flew 45 million hours in that time period.
The Piper Archer is sometimes used as a primary trainer for student pilots but is more commonly used for more advanced training for pilots seeking their commercial license or instrument rating. It has a maximum weight of 2,550 pounds, cruises at about 145 mph and has a 180-horsepower engine.
The plane that crashed was 26 years old.
Wednesday's fatal accident was stunningly similar to an incident on July 10, 1995, when a single-engine plane stalled after takeoff from Executive Airport and smashed down on a passing car.
In that crash, William Kilby, 64, and his wife, Peggy, 58, had been headed to Orlando when less than a minute after takeoff their plane spiraled sharply to the left. The Cessna plunged onto Commercial Boulevard, just east of Northwest 12th Avenue and less than a half-mile from the runway.
The plane rammed a white Honda Accord driven by Viergline Mercidieu of Oakland Park, who along with her two children escaped serious injury. But both Kirby and his wife were killed on impact.
Investigators in that crash said the plane likely stalled. In aviation jargon, a stall means there was insufficient airflow over the wings to provide lift -- not necessarily that the engine quit.
People who work in the warehouses near Wednesday's accident said they tend to get immune to the noise of passing aircraft after a while. That's what happened to Arcadio Ferrer and Krystal King. They work at Atlantic Marcite, a pool resurfacing business next door to the auto body shop. They heard the plane overhead but didn't think anything of it. Even after Ferrer heard the heavy sound of the impact, he assumed it was something inside the warehouse, not a crashing plane.
King was more curious. She stepped out into the street, noticed dust rising from the roof and saw people running out of the auto body shop. Within minutes, fire-rescue trucks came screaming down the street.
Pete Flecha, who was fixing a computer at a business across the street, watched, amazed, as the Fort Lauderdale Fire-Rescue medics loaded two people into rescue trucks and took off. When he first heard the noise, he thought it was thunder.
"It was insane," he said. "Stuff like this never happens. This hits too close to home. It was 30 yards from where I was working."
Staff Writer Rafael Olmeda contributed to this report.
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