CLEARWATER, Fla. (WSVN) — The Clearwater Police Department released 911 calls from the night a small plane crashed into a mobile home park, killing a pilot and two others on the ground.
The Beechcraft Bonanza V-35 crash landed onto several homes inside the Bayside Waters mobile home park, leaving behind destruction in the heavily populated area.
Although the Clearwater Fire Department was already en route to the crash site when calls came in, authorities and neighbors alike were still unsure about what fell out of the sky when neighbors initially reported the incident.
“Something just fell out of the sky and exploded on the trailer park across from us, and now it’s getting huge,” a neighbor told the 911 operator on Feb. 1 when the plane plummeted to the ground.
“Alright. Okay, so you didn’t see if it was like maybe a firework or anything like that?” the 911 operator asked the caller.
The neighbor was heard handing the phone over to a man who also witnessed the aircraft fall.
“Um, so – it looked like a – I thought I just saw a helicopter flying far away, but it was, I guess, something smaller, a little closer and had some lights, and it flew down and crashed,” he told the operator.
“Like a drone maybe?” the dispatcher asked.
“I don’t know. It might be like a large drone, like one of the – but I don’t know exactly. It had lights. But, uh, yeah, it made a big fireball,” a man said in the 911 call.
Jemin Patel, a 54-year-old pilot from Melbourne Beach, died in the crash, along with 86-year-old Martha Parry, who owned the home where the plane crashed, and 54-year-old Mary Ellen Pender.
Patel took off from Vero Beach and was en route to Clearwater Air Park when he reported an engine failure in a distress call. He reportedly tried to make an emergency landing at St. Pete-Clearwater International Airport.
The National Transportation Safety Board is planning to remove the wreckage Saturday.
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