One person was killed and five injured after a Cessna 172 made an emergency landing on a bridge and collided with an SUV in Miami on Saturday afternoon. Two occupants of the plane were able to get out of the plane and were taken to a local trauma center. The body of another person was found in the plane. He has since been identified as Narciso Torres, a Miami Tower controller. The three occupants of the SUV were treated for non-life-threatening injuries according to local officials. The aircraft fuselage was destroyed in a post-crash fire but it was about 100 feet from the SUV and the fire did not spread.

The aircraft took off from Fort Lauderdale bound for Key West when the crash occurred about 1 p.m. The crash occurred on Haulover Inlet Bridge. Some officials have told local media the aircraft lost power before the accident. The plane hit the SUV head on and ended up inverted and on fire.

Russ Niles
Russ Niles is Editor-in-Chief of AVweb. He has been a pilot for 30 years and joined AVweb 22 years ago. He and his wife Marni live in southern British Columbia where they also operate a small winery.

13 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t know the area and what options were available, but for me, roads are a last resort.
    Ditching in the water might well have saved a life in this case? Hard to know for sure.

    • Indeed. Yet we always see media reports of people making landings on roads. I am yet to see a comment in a report that the prevalence of cars and wires mean that roads are the last resort.

    • Road are one thing, bridges with side rails are another. Cars can get out of your way very easily on a bridge. Ditching in a fixed gear plane is bad too, I think fight or flight instant response would make that call at that time.

  2. Wonder why they landed opposite oncoming traffic. If that is the case. Just listened to the latest AOPA podcast with McSpadden about a guy who put it down on the 101 in SoCal.

    • The average road lane is 12ft wide and a Cessna 172 has a 36ft wingspan. So if you landed that Cessna *exactly* in the middle of a roadway that’s three lanes wide — which that bridge is not — the plane would still occupy all three lanes.

  3. Having lived and flown in that area for a big part of my life, I would recommend ditching in the water THAT’S ALL AROUND you and is not freezing anytime of the year. Landing on a bridge like that is suicidal.

    • If the “Monday morning QBs” influence a single pilot into making a better decision. It is called ‘hangar flying’ and ‘post-crash analysis’. Otherwise known as “I would much rather learn from the mistakes of others.”

  4. I have done a bit of flying in that area and there are 2 very nice beaches, one on either side of the bridge. Even going into the water a few yards off shore would have been a much better choice in my mind.
    One “limiting factor” is that Haulover Beach, just north of the bridge, has a nude (clothing optional) beach which may have been a distraction.
    I know that from 1000′ you can’t tell though.

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