ERAU student killed in Spruce Creek Fly-In plane crash

SPRUCE CREEK FLY-IN — A federal investigator examined the wreckage Wednesday from a fatal single-engine plane crash and said the plane only got about 200 feet above Spruce Creek Airport before turning left, hitting some trees and narrowly missing some houses when it slammed to the ground.

The Tuesday night crash killed the passenger of the two-seat Cessna 140, 22-year-old Nandish Patel of Titusville. Patel is a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, according to a statement released by ERAU. The pilot, Chase Zinn, 23, of Pennsylvania remained hospitalized, said Laura Williams, Volusia County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman. Dan Boggs, National Transportation Safety Board investigator, said the pilot had critical injuries.

Zinn graduated from ERAU in May 2017 and is an instructor pilot, according to the statement.

Zinn's family owned the aircraft, Williams said, and the flight was not part of student activity. This is the second plane crash this year to claim the life of an ERAU student.

The wreckage was towed away from the crash site Wednesday afternoon and will be taken to a salvage hanger in Jacksonville to be analyzed, Boggs said.

The aircraft fell from the sky shortly after takeoff around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, the aviation investigator said.

Tuesday's fatality is the fifth death involving an aircraft leaving or approaching Spruce Creek Airport, federal records show.  Just outside Port Orange, Spruce Creek Fly-In is one of the world's largest communities with a landing strip and hangar-equipped homes along taxiways.

Boggs said that at the salvage yard investigators will be looking at the aircraft's systems and the engine and the pilot's experience.

"We are not really sure exactly what happened but he did make a left-hand turn after takeoff and ended up in the trees next to a couple of houses," Boggs said.

The small plane took off from runway six at the Spruce Creek airport and got to tree-top height and then crashed near that airstrip, Boggs said.

"About 200 feet is about as high they got in the air and made a left bank and ended up in the trees and then straight down from the trees," Boggs said.

There was no flight plan filed and pilots typically only announce they are taking off, Boggs said.

"It's an uncontrolled filed, there is no tower," Boggs said. "It's what called a unicom. They just announce on a frequency that other pilots are using in the area just so other pilots know where they are at."

The aircraft constructed in 1946 was "meticulously" maintained, Boggs said.

According to Flightaware, a website that gives information on the registration of aircraft, the red and cream plane became the property of James B. Savage of Gibsonia, Pennsylvania, in 2009.

Callers to 9-1-1 said the airplane crashed into an empty lot at 2540 Taxiway Echo near Runway 6. No one on the ground was injured.

"It took off Runway 6 and turned left and crashed into an empty lot," a caller said to a dispatcher. "It crashed into the center of vacant property."

"They hit some some trees and I think it broke the fall a little bit," the caller added.

This is the second fatal plane crash in less that two months that killed ERAU students.

"With deep sorrow, we can inform you of the tragic loss of an Embry–Riddle Eagle and injuries to another," reads the ERAU statement sent out by James Roddy, director of communications." The families of Nandish and Chase are close in our thoughts and hearts.

Patel, a senior aeronautical science major, died at the scene. A permanent resident of the United States, he was originally from India and had transferred to Embry-Riddle from Eastern Florida State College.

Zinn, whose legs were trapped in the aircraft and had an open head injury, was freed and taken to Halifax Health Medical Center, officials said.

On April 4, an ERAU plane lost a wing during flight training and crashed into a cow pasture near the Daytona Beach Flea Market on Tomoka Farms Road, killing student pilot Zach Capra and Federal Aviation Administration pilot examiner John S. Azma. The investigation into that crash also continues.

According to investigators, an examination of the Piper PA-28R-201 aircraft left wing found fatigue cracks on the wing spar — a metal structure that bears the load of the wing. The left wing separated from the “fuselage near the wing root” and the fatigue began “at or near an attachment bolt hole,” investigators said.