Pilot in crash reported trouble

OAKLAND PARK, Fla. (AP) — Cecil A. Murray’s flight from one Florida beach town to another was going to be the last in a small airplane he planned to sell.

But the 80-year-old pilot began having problems right after taking off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport on Friday.

Senior Air Traffic Safety Investigator Robert Gretz said he hadn’t yet heard the tapes, but said Murray wasn’t specific about whatever went wrong.

“I spoke to the FAA today, and their exact words were, “The pilot said, ‘I’m having trouble and I need to come back.’”

Murray was given clearance to land on any runway and turned the aircraft around, then dipped suddenly into the house, Gretz said Saturday.

“They don’t believe it reached a high point above approximately 300 feet,” Gretz said.

Family members told federal investigators the veteran pilot was going to Fernandina Beach to sell the twin-engine Cessna 421, authorities said.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators on Saturday hoped to finish clearing debris from the home Murray’s plane plowed through before bursting into flames. Murray’s death was the only casualty.

Gretz said Saturday all major pieces of the plane had been located, though some evidence was lost in the fire.

He and other gloved investigators pieced carefully through piles of charred debris, cradled in two walls of the home somehow left standing.

The neighbor’s closely situated homes didn’t suffer a scratch.

“The whole process is about 6 to 12 months,” Gretz said. “This is day two of an investigation that runs that long.”

Homeowner Oscar Nolasco ordinarily would’ve been there, but was called in to work that Friday. His nephew left only a few minutes before the crash.

“I don’t know what to think, what I’m going to do, where I’m going to live,” said Nolasco, feeling alternately shaken and relieved. “Logically, now I have to thank God I have my life.”

Gretz said he expected a preliminary report to be finished in five to 10 business days.

After that, within six months the agency will compile a factual report, and the safety board will issue a ruling of probable cause.

The small craft had no black box.