Police ID Fourth Victim Recovered In Everglades Plane Crash
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami-Dade police and fire rescue search and rescue team members have recovered the body of a fourth victim from Tuesday's plane crash in the Everglades.
On Wednesday morning, Miami-Dade Police Department Public Information Officer Alvaro Zabaleta identified the fourth victim as 22-year-old Carlos Alfredo Zanetti Scarpati, who was a student at Dean International Flight School.
Zabaleta said Wednesday's search began at around 8:15 a.m. and that Zanetti's body was found by homicide detectives at approximately 9:25 a.m.
The four people were killed after the mid-air collision of two small planes. The bodies of three of the victims were recovered on Wednesday.
The planes went down south of Tamiami Trail a few miles west of Krome Avenue at mile marker 23.
Rescuers located a Piper Seneca just south of Tamiami Trail, the wreckage of a Cessna was found a little further away.
Those killed in the crash have been identified as 19-year-old Nisha Sejwall, 22-year-old Jorge Sanchez, and 72-year-old Ralph Knight. The fourth victim found Wednesday has not been identified.
Daniel Miralles said he and his friend Gary Winthorpe were out fishing when the crash happened around 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
He took cell phone video, which captured debris falling from the sky following the collision.
"Imagine an 18-wheeler going 100 miles an hour and colliding into a wall. That's what it sounded like," said Miralles.
"Out of nowhere, we hear a semi-pass by and then we hear this big explosion so in our heads we're thinking the semi-truck crashed and we look up and all you see is this giant ball of flame," said Winthorpe. "You see one spinning, falling down and you see the other one engulfed in flames falling down."
Nearly 30 Miami Dade Fire Rescue units were dispatched to the scene where rescuers had to use airboats to reach the remote area where the planes were.
The crash will be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). As part of the investigation, flight tracks will be pulled to see the patterns they were flying before they collided to see if there was anything unsual.
The planes came from Dean International Flight School based at the Miami Executive Airport, a school which in the last several has had several crashes and incidents.
Two months ago, two were injured but survived when a plane went down in a remote part of the Everglades, a year ago there were two other crashes, in one of which an advanced student was killed.
FAA records show the school has more than a dozen incidents and accidents over the last 10 years, attempts to reach the owner Robert Dean were not successful.