Witness of deadly Lantana airport plane crash jumped fence. 'There was no way' to help

LANTANA — To visitors at John Prince Park campground, Friday morning's plane crash at the neighboring Palm Beach County Park Airport sounded like a propane truck exploding.

Or a shotgun firing.

Joshua Saeger and his wife, Caryn, were packing up their three young children to leave for the day when they heard the plane crash just on the other side of the fence from their campsite. Joshua, a retired Iraq War combat medic, said he grabbed a towel and scaled the barbed-wire fence behind the campsite to see if he could help the people involved. Caryn quickly called 911.

"There was a ring of small fires around the plane," he said. "I wanted to get in there and see if I could get a pulse, but there was no way."

Two people died in the crash just before 11:20 a.m. Friday at the airport near Lantana. They were identified Sunday by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office as Stanley Sands, 76, of Lake Worth Beach, and Ana Diego Matias, 20, of Lantana. Other media outlets had reported the two people aboard the plane were a longtime flight instructor and a student.

Palm Beach County Fire Rescue was able to extinguish the fires just before 11:30 a.m., according to the department.

On Saturday morning, half a dozen investigators, including some from the National Transportation Safety Board, surrounded the plane's wreckage to the east of the airport's runway.

The NTSB said Friday it expects to have a report on what caused the crash in about three weeks, but aviation professionals are starting to review the data and have found that the small plane attempted a nearly impossible 180-degree turn back to the airport right before it crashed.

At the airport, where about 150 small planes take off and land every day, things were quiet Saturday morning. Most of the flight school offices were closed for the weekend, and the few people who were there declined to speak to the media.

Although pilots know their craft comes with a certain amount of risk, all were tragically reminded of that fact on Friday.

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Plane that crashed may have been attempting 'impossible turn' back to airport

Investigators have not yet released information about the plane or its flight Friday beyond its make and model, a single-engine Cessna 172. Flight records show a plane of that make and model that was scheduled to take off at 11:18 a.m. on Friday with the tail number N3KV — a plane that had flown 21 times in the preceding week.

Those flights ranged in duration from just nine minutes to up to an hour and 17 minutes. Last Sunday, the plane flew to Pompano Beach Airpark and back, flight records show.

The plane is registered to Victor Barcroft Kieffer, a Palm Beach Gardens man whom records show died last July. A Missouri native, Kieffer bought the Cessna plane in 1984 and spent many years restoring it and flying it in South Florida, according to his obituary.

Although Kieffer was registered as a private pilot, it's possible that his plane was used to teach new pilots after his death. The Cessna's flight records show several short flights, most of which began and ended at the Lantana airport.

Weather reports from Friday morning at about 11:15 a.m. show it was cloudy and a thunderstorm was approaching the airport from the west.

While the NTSB investigates what caused the crash, some aviation professionals are beginning to suspect the wreck was caused by some sort of engine malfunction and an attempt at an "impossible turn" back to the airport.

"With the small planes, they have reciprocating engines. So when something goes wrong, there's no other backup engine. You just glide," Robert Morgan, an air traffic controller at nearby Palm Beach International Airport and a flight instructor, told The Palm Beach Post.

Morgan, who specializes in teaching people how to fly small planes like single-engine Cessnas, was not involved in air traffic control or operations at the Lantana airport Friday. Last year, he coached a passenger with no flight experience to make an emergency landing at the Palm Beach airport when the plane's pilot became unresponsive.

In reviewing flight data made publicly available by the online website ADSB-Exchange, Morgan said the plane took off heading northeast from the airport's 422 runway. After takeoff, it made an abrupt turn that looks like it was heading back to the airport, Morgan said.

An 180-degree turn immediately after takeoff is referred to by the FAA as "the impossible turn." Most small aircraft need to be at least 700 feet off the ground to make the turn successfully, Morgan said. Flight records show the Cessna 172 was at an altitude of 300 feet.

Ideally, if a pilot has a difficulty at takeoff, they should always try to land the plane straight ahead, Morgan said. If the Cessna 172 was at the end of the runway, that wouldn't have been an option at the Lantana airport. The airport can be difficult to navigate in an emergency, Morgan said, because it's surrounded by homes and major roads.

"In Lantana there's not many places to go," he said. "You're going to be in somebody's house or in the lake. You have to pick the best place and fly it to the crash site. You can't give up."

Campers: Plane was nearly sideways before it crashed at Lantana area airport

Saeger, who had been visiting the campground for a week from Colorado, said he and others saw the plane briefly over the campground and then veer back toward the runway. He wasn't sure whether it was taking off or trying to land.

His neighbors at the campground told him the plane had been nearly sideways before it crashed.

In the following 24 hours, Saeger said they've been thinking what might have happened if the plane had been just a little farther east at the campground packed for the Memorial Day weekend.

Friday's crash is second this year at small airport

Friday's crash is the second this year at the airport, which sits 7 miles south of Palm Beach International Airport. A popular destination for small planes and charter flights, the Lantana airfield has been in use since the 1940s.

John Holland, 43, of Delray Beach and Michael Marshall Jr., 34 , of Boca Raton died when their Diamond DA40 crashed late on March 5.

Holland worked for Palm Beach County-based Aamro Aviation and had traveled to Kentucky to pick up a new plane recently purchased by the company. Holland was piloting the plane and Marshall was aboard as part of his training to become a pilot.

Any person who witnessed Friday's crash or has video that may have captured it can share it with the NTSB by email at witness@ntsb.gov.

Palm Beach Post criminal justice and public safety reporter Julius Whigham II contributed to this report.

Katherine Kokal is a journalist covering education at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at kkokal@pbpost.com. Help support our work, subscribe today!

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Plane crash Lantana: Witnesses at airport saw sideways airplane, fire