Victims in Clearwater plane crash identified
Clearwater officials on Saturday morning identified the three people who died Thursday after an airplane crashed into a mobile home in the Bayside Waters 55+ community.
Among the victims was Martha Parry, 86, who Clearwater officials said lived at 2647 Pagoda Drive, the site of the plane crash. Also killed was Mary Ellen Pender, 54, of Treasure Island, who was visiting the mobile home.
The pilot of the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza V35, who was also killed, was identified as Jemin Patel, 54. Patel was a licensed pilot from Melbourne Beach.
Aviation records indicate that the plane was owned by Control Data Inc., a company based in Indianapolis, Indiana. Patel is listed as the company’s owner.
Officials have said that there had been about 10 people in the mobile home socializing after a day of golfing but most left just before the plane, which had taken off from Vero Beach about an hour earlier, suffered engine failure and crashed. It ignited a fire, which destroyed the mobile home and damaged several others adjacent to the crash site.
Pender had been golfing with her friends earlier in the day and after the others left Parry’s home, she stayed behind to help her friend clean up because she always did, said Pender’s husband, Bobby Dixon. Pender was a retired nurse from Queens and the couple were snowbirds dividing their time between Florida and Connecticut.
