Plane Went Down While Making An Emergency Landing At Palm Beach County Glades Airport

The NTSB has released a preliminary report from an accident which occurred March 8th in south central Florida. The commercial pilot and four passengers were fatally injured when the plane went down.

According to the report, the Piper PA 23-250 airplane, N5894Y, impacted a lake during an emergency landing at the Palm Beach County Glades Airport (KPHK), Pahokee Florida.

The airplane was registered to L-Holding LLC, and operated by the pilot as a Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 flight. VFR conditions prevailed at the time of the accident and the flight was operated on an instrument flight rules flight plan.

The flight originated from the Tampa International Airport (KTPA), Tampa, Florida about 1420 and was destined for North Palm Beach County General Aviation Airport (F45), West Palm Beach, Florida.

The FAA reported that the pilot declared an emergency to air traffic control and reported a rough running left engine. The pilot further reported that he was going to shut down the left engine and divert to PHK. The controller cleared the pilot to land; the pilot's last transmission was when he reported the airport in sight.

Witnesses reported that their attention was drawn to the airplane when they observed it in a 45^o nose and left-wing low rapid descent before it impacted the water.

The airplane was recovered to a secure location for further examination.

(Source: NTSB. Image from file. Not accident airplane)

FMI: app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20190309X93709&AKey=1&RType=HTML&IType=FA