PEMBROKE PINES, Fla. — Air traffic control never received a distress call from the pilot of a small plane that crashed into a sport utility vehicle last month in Pembroke Pines, killing three people, according to a preliminary accident report released Tuesday.
Yaacov Nahom, 63, and Grant Hustad, 71, were on the plane that crashed in a neighborhood near the North Perry Airport. Taylor Bishop, a 4-year-old boy who was a passenger in the SUV, was also killed.
According to the preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board, the plane was cleared for takeoff just before 3 p.m. March 15 and the pilot was instructed to enter the left downwind leg of the traffic pattern, which was acknowledged.
"There were no distress calls received from the airplane during the flight," the report said.
Another pilot at the airport who witnessed the crash said he saw the plane climbing at a "very slow rate" and soon after heard it experience a total loss of engine power, saying it "failed completely."
He said the plane was about 100-200 feet past the departure end of the runway and at an altitude "definitely lower than 300 ft. above ground level." That's when the plane "stalled," spun and pitched nose down, the witness observed.
The plane took down an electrical power line, crashed into the SUV that was traveling north on Southwest 72nd Avenue and then caught fire.
