Transcripts: Pilot had trouble
MIAMI (AP) – A pilot whose plane crashed into a suburban neighborhood in April, killing him and destroying a home, reported trouble to air traffic controllers before going down, transcripts released Tuesday show.
The transcripts don’t indicate a precise cause of the plane trouble experienced by 80-year-old Cecil A. Murray, but show the pilot indicated problems less than two minutes after taking off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport on April 17.
“I’m having some trouble here,” Murray said. “I’m going to have to come around and land.”
Air traffic controllers cleared the pilot for landing, but he couldn’t make it back to a runway. A final dispatch between Murray and the air tower, about a minute later, was unintelligible.
He crashed into a home about a mile from the airport, dividing it in two and sparking a fire. Within minutes, Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were on the scene.
“Looks like it’s a direct hit on the house,” one of them radioed to air traffic controllers. “The house is fully engulfed.”