PEMBROKE PINES, FLA. (WSVN) - The safety of North Perry Airport and honoring good Samaritans was on the agenda for city commissioners in Pembroke Pines following multiple incidents in the area, including the most recent one, when a pilot made an emergency landing by the Florida Everglades.
The pilot had taken off from North Perry less than 30 minutes before he had to nose dive into some bushes on Tuesday. Luckily, the two people on board walked away unharmed.
On Wednesday, commissioners said they do believe there’s a problem with traffic and safety at the airport.
But the meeting came about three weeks after neighbors saved a family of four in a plane that had just gone down in a Pines neighborhood, just east of the airport.
During the meeting, commissioners also honored the four men who jumped in to save the family inside the plane.
“Their bravery embodies the very definition of heroism and reflects the highest ideals of community service,” said Pembroke Pines Police Assistant Chief Tony Cerino.
The men — Tarrance Sheffield, Scott Hanley, Eddie Crispin and Emanuel Lianguno — either ran from their homes or from those they were visiting when they heard the crash outside their neighborhood. Lianguno did not appear at Wednesday’s meeting.
“It was smoking, fire,” recalled Hanley in an interview with 7News.
Cerino said the men did their best to successfully save the victims.
“Armed only with a sledgehammer and their courage, they broke the windows to ventilate the smoke and used their shirts to shield the victims from broken glass,” said Cerino.
The city’s mayor, Angelo Castillo, said that they will always be remembered as heroes.
“Forevermore, you will be remembered as a hero,” he said.
Crispin told 7News after the meeting that he was in the right place, at the right time.
“I don’t want to say like, it makes me feel like very heroic and anything like that. I just feel like I was put in a position where I was supposed to be there, at the right place, at the right time and, you know, I wish and feel like anybody would do the same thing,” he said.
But the topic of safety was also on hand. City officials say these plane crashes and other incidents are happening with alarming frequency. They want the county and the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a safety study.
“So what are we waiting for? Let’s get this done,” said City Commissioner Tom Good.
Castillo said North Perry Airport, now one of the state’s busiest general aviation airports, could be incompatible with a densely populated city.
“There’s a takeoff and landing, and this is rough math, every minute in the time that it took me to just say that, there’s already been a takeoff and landing, on average, at North Perry Airport,” he said.
The City of Pembroke Pines has compiled a list of 42 incidents over five years, from fatal crashes to mechanical mishaps.
One of those incidents killed 4-year-old Taylor Bishop in 2021 when a plane crashed into a car he was in with his mother just east of North Perry Airport.
Bishop’s mother called into the meeting to weigh in on the issue of safety.
“And typically fatalities ignite change. And to this date, I have not seen change come from that airport, and it reflects in the crashes that we have seen,” said Megan.
Ultimately, commissioners voted to ask for a study to be conducted at North Perry and said that they acknowledge everything that these neighbors have done.
A town hall will be held on Aug. 27 at the South Regional/Broward College Library hosted by Broward County Commissioner Alexandra Davis.
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