July 18 -- MIAMI -- Two small planes crashed in midair over far west Miami-Dade around 1 p.m. Tuesday. County Mayor Carlos Gimenez told The Miami Herald that three people were killed in the midair collision.
“I heard a weird sound. It sounded like a plane, but it it sounded too close. It sounded like an 18-wheeler going 100 mph down the street,” said South Miami-Dade resident Daniel Miralles, who was fishing in the area, as he does often.
Miralles looked up in time to see the two planes collide.
Florida Highway Patrol says Southwest Eighth Street is closed in both directions from Krome Avenue all the way to the Collier County line, a distance of about 33 miles. The FAA placed the crash at nine miles west of Miami Executive Airport, 14150 SW 129th St., and involved a Piper PA-34 and a Cessna 172. The agency said both flights were under “visual flight rules” so no flight plans were required.
Gimenez said the planes are from the Dean International flight school, which operates out of that airport.
“We’re trying right now to keep the lines clear,” she said before hanging up.
A woman who answered the phone at Dean International’s Tamiami Airport office told a reporter to call back Wednesday.
Dean International’s website says it offers primary instruction for student pilots, advanced instruction for private and commercial pilots and training for multi-engine flight. What it doesn’t say is that FAA records showed more than two dozen accidents and incidents from 2007-2017.
Recently, a Cessna 152 from Dean went down in the Everglades, putting two people in the hospital in May. A year ago, a Cessna 172 out of Dean International crash landed on Crandon Boulevard in Key Biscayne the week after a Cessna 152 with a student pilot flying solo crashed in the Everglades. The student pilot, working on an advanced certification, died.
Tuesday afternoon, Michael Coppo stood outside the Dean International flight school awaiting information about his friend, Jorge Sanchez, a certified Dean flight instructor.
Coppo said Sanchez was on a “cross-country trip,” meaning he was traveling 50 nautical miles to another airport with a student and then returning. Coppo said Sanchez left at 9 a.m.and should have been back by 1 p.m., around the time of the crash.
Coppo used to fly from Dean, but stopped about a year ago. He had met Sanchez through Miami-Dade College’s aviation program, which contracted with Dean. Coppo estimates he and Sanchez flew 100 hours together before Coppo left the flight school.
He used past tense when talking about Sanchez, though no names have been released yet of the crash’s victims. Sanchez’s black Ford Mustang, with an “I’d Rather Be Flying” license plate frame, sat in the parking lot outside the school.
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