rickheel
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Dead Pilot Involved in Two Crashes
Thu Jun 6, 8:49 AM ET
TAMPA, Fla. (Reuters) - A pilot who died in the crash of a small private plane in Florida on Tuesday has been identified as the same man who survived a helicopter crash the night before, leading to suspicions he was trying to kill himself, officials said on Wednesday.
The Hillsborough County Medical Examiner's office and the Sheriff's Office identified the dead pilot as Michael Antinori of Tampa. He was killed on Tuesday morning when his single-engine Cessna crashed into a wooded area near Tampa.
Antinori, 30, was also the pilot and owner of a helicopter that crashed into a home in Tampa on Monday night. In that crash, Antinori suffered minor injuries while the three people inside the house were not injured.
Antinori, whose family owns a bed company in Tampa, was released from Tampa General Hospital before dawn on Tuesday. He went back to the airport a few hours later and took off in the Cessna without filing a flight plan.
Air traffic controllers at Tampa International Airport said Antinori flew in circles for a hour and ignored radio calls before the plane crashed.
The National Transportation Safety Board (news - web sites) and the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) are investigating. If the crash is found to be intentional, it would be the second suicide flight in five months in Tampa.
On Jan. 5, Charles Bishop, a 15-year old student pilot, killed himself by crashing a stolen Cessna into a Tampa office building.
No one else was hurt in the incident on a weekend afternoon when few people were in the building, but the incident was an alarming echo, albeit on a much smaller scale, of the Sept. 11 attacks when hijacked passenger planes were slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites).
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06-06-2002 12:39 PM |
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rickheel
The Old Bastard
Posts: 8,468
Joined: Feb 2002
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I Root For: Heels
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06-06-2002 06:17 PM |
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