The pilot of a small banner plane was killed when the plane crashed on a Hollywood street on Wednesday, erupting in a ball of flame and shocking witnesses watching the crash.
The accident happened around 12:35 p.m. near the 450 block of North Park Road, next to a Target parking lot and not far from Memorial Regional Hospital.
Video released on social media showed the crashed and ablaze yellow Piper PA-25-235 plane on the street, with thick black smoke billowing into the air.
Arielle Thony, who works in a building nearby, said she and her colleagues saw the plane go down.
“We saw the yellow plane coming down, it was flying very low and we were very worried. A few seconds later we saw the banner fall down,” she said. “We all ran to the window and unfortunately we saw the plane on fire and it was definitely a sight to behold, it was horrific.”
Hollywood City officials said firefighters arrived and found the single-engine plane completely ablaze.
Aerial photos showed the plane’s burned wreckage on the roadway, which rescue workers doused with foam.
“The plane burst into flames, another person said they saw it just fall out of the sky,” said Maddie Barcy, who works at a nearby optometrist’s office.
Officials said the fire was extinguished but the pilot was killed. The pilot’s identity was not disclosed.
No other injuries were reported and no vehicles were hit by the plane, officials said.
The National Transportation Safety Board has been tasked with investigating the accident, officials said. The Federal Aviation Administration is also investigating.
According to the FAA, the aircraft belongs to Aerial Banners, which uses aircraft to advertise companies. The crash happened after the plane took off from North Perry Airport, NTSB officials said.
NBC6 noted that the company was linked to five crashes and forced landings from 2014 to 2019. A 2019 crash saw some of the worst wreckage after the plane slammed into the side of a condominium near Fort Lauderdale, plummeting 14 stories onto a pool deck and killing the pilot.
NBC6’s Lorena Inclan has learned more about the crash, the latest from the company involved.
NBC6 reached out to Aerial Banners for comment Wednesday and is awaiting response.
A person who said he was a friend of the pilot arrived at the scene later Wednesday and said the victim was in his mid-20s and had been a commercial pilot for several years. He also said the victim was just beginning to learn to fly banner aircraft and said Wednesday’s flight was either his first or second flight.
North Park Road at the scene of the accident was expected to be closed throughout the day and into Thursday. Anyone heading to the hospital and normally taking this stretch of Park Road has been asked to use an alternative route.
Further information was not initially known.
Contact NBC6 for updates.