By MICHAEL LaFORGIA and ANDREW MARRA
Palm Beach Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
The crippled plane was heading right for them.
Helicopter student Andrew Herrick was standing near a fuel truck and a line of choppers at an airstrip west of Lantana, and this little red Beechcraft was primed to plow through him and about eight other people around him.
In the seconds before that happened, Herrick figures, the pilot made a simple, selfless decision this morning.
As the people on the ground watched, the plummeting Beechcraft V35 Bonanza banked hard to the left and slammed into the ground at about 100 mph, slicing the wing off a parked Cessna 337 before coming to rest under a tractor trailer in a heap of crumpled wreckage.
Killed were James Howard Henderson, 68, of suburban Lake Worth and the plane’s registered owner, James D. Breazeal, 70, of Windermere, authorities said. Nobody else was hurt. Henderson was flying the 50-year-old plane, authorities said.
“I really think he saw where he was going, and he said, ‘Hey, it’s either all them or me,’” Herrick said later, looking out at pieces of the broken plane. “I really believe he just dumped it. Sacrificed.”
Henderson, a certified pilot, drove a fuel truck for Florida Airmotive, which operates the Palm Beach County Park Airport. He was known among pilots and mechanics there as affable and hardworking.
“He was a longtime friend and employee,” said Owen Gassaway III, who runs Florida Airmotive.
Henderson’s family gathered at his house today to mourn. They said they didn’t want to talk about the crash.
Members of Breazeal’s family couldn’t be reached for comment.
Local and federal investigators were working to pinpoint the cause of the crash. Henderson and Breazeal had worked on the plane for several months before flying it today, said Teri Barbera, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman.
Witnesses said the engine sputtered as the plane took off about 11:30 a.m. The pilot brought the Beechcraft around before it crashed near a strip of hangars on the airfield’s southeast corner.
Former aircraft mechanic Rick Luzader said he saw the crashed plane on TV and recognized it as one he inspected for Windward Aviation about two years ago. Luzader said he asked the company to ground the plane.
“There was a massive amount of corrosion on the aircraft,” Luzader said. “I was concerned then. I knew this was going to happen.”