7 of 9 on plane that crashed in Ohio were from Florida real estate firm

Two executives and five other employees of a Florida real estate investment company were on a small jet that crashed into an Ohio apartment house, killing all nine people onboard Tuesday. 

|
Phil Long/AP
Jim Silliman, National Transportation Safety Board lead investigator, speaks to reporters at a news conference, as Bella Dinh-Carr, vice-chairman of the NTSB watches, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2015, in Akron, Ohio. Silliman is explaining the status of the NTSB investigation into yesterday's jet plane crash in Akron, that killed nine people, seven passengers and two pilots, as the plane was attempting to land at Akron Fulton Airport. No one on the ground was injured or killed.

Seven associates of a Florida real estate investment company were on the second day of a multicity Midwestern trip to look at property for potential shopping centers when their small jet crashed into an Ohio apartment house, killing all nine people onboard.

The crash Tuesday afternoon in Akron — 2 miles from the small airport where the plane was to land — killed two executives and five employees at Pebb Enterprises, a Boca Raton-based company that specializes in shopping centers. The two pilots also were killed.

Another pilot who had just landed at the airport reported hearing no distress calls despite being on the same communications frequency as the aircraft that went down, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.

The NTSB recovered the downed plane's cockpit voice recorder, which was being sent to a lab in Washington.

Investigators also reviewed surveillance video from a construction company that showed the plane coming in along the tops of trees and banking to the left before it crashed and exploded into flames and a cloud of black smoke, said Bella Dinh-Zarr, vice chairman of the NTSB.

The left wing hit the ground first before the plane crashed into the apartment house, she said.

Officials haven't released names of the victims, but family members at the crash scene said the dead included 50-year-old Diane Smoot, who was with the group from Pebb Enterprises, her sister told Cleveland.com.

"Our hearts are broken this morning with the news of the tragic accident that took the lives of two principals and five employees of Pebb Enterprises," said a statement posted Wednesday on the company website. "We are shocked and deeply saddened for the families, colleagues and friends of those who perished."

The chartered plane left Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Monday and stopped in St. Paul, Minnesota; Moline, Illinois; and St. Louis before arriving in Cincinnati, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware.

The plane departed from Cincinnati on Tuesday morning and stopped in Dayton before crashing on its approach to Akron Fulton International just before 3 p.m.

The 10-seat Hawker H25 business jet clipped utility wires and crashed into the four-unit apartment building, sparking a fire that destroyed the building, Ohio State Highway Patrol Lt. Bill Haymaker said. Nobody was home at any of the apartments, and there were no other injuries.

A man who lived in the unit that the plane crashed into said he wasn't home because he'd gone to the store to buy Hot Pockets, a brand of microwavable turnovers.

Jason Bartley told the Akron Beacon Journal that he feels lucky but also in shock over the crash. The 38-year-old factory worker said he was coming home when he saw the flames.

Investigators are trying to determine what caused the crash, which shook furniture in homes several blocks away and left behind fiery debris.

It could take days to recover and identify the victims, Haymaker said.

"It's going to be extensive," he said.

The Summit County coroner on Wednesday sought the expertise of a forensics team from Mercyhurst University in Erie, Pennsylvania, to help local officials at the site of the crash. The team specializes in crime scene and airplane crash recoveries of human remains.

Witnesses, including Carrie Willis, who lives several blocks away, said they heard explosions when the plane hit.

"I heard a big bang, and my couch shook twice," Willis said.

Roberta Porter, who lives about a block from the site, said she was driving home when she saw the plane crash and burst into flames.

"This plane just dropped out of the sky, veered and crashed into the apartment building," Porter said.

She said it's scary to think that if she had been driving faster the plane might have clipped her car.

___

Stacy reported from Columbus. Associated Press writer John Seewer in Toledo contributed to this report.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to 7 of 9 on plane that crashed in Ohio were from Florida real estate firm
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2015/1111/7-of-9-on-plane-that-crashed-in-Ohio-were-from-Florida-real-estate-firm
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe