Pilot and passengers identified in deadly plane crash at North Perry Airport

A 31-year-old pilot from Pembroke Pines and a 23-year-old Georgia woman were the two people who died in last week’s plane crash at North Perry Airport, Pembroke Pines police said Monday.

Killed in Friday’s crash were Felipe Becerra Cardenas, of Pembroke Pines, and Shelby Thomas, of Port Wentworth, Georgia, police said.

A third occupant, Jamal Hall, 25, also from Georgia, was identified as the sole survivor of the crash. After being hospitalized in critical condition, he still was receiving medical treatment Monday, according to Pembroke Pines police.

Hall, a passenger who was in the back seat of the plane, was taken to Memorial Regional Hospital after Friday’s crash. Cardenas was serving as the pilot when he died in the crash, and seated beside him was Thomas, who died shortly after in the hospital, officials said Saturday.

The Cessna 172 single-engine plane has since been moved from North Perry Airport to a secured facility in Fort Pierce that specializes in accident recovery and storage, Aaron McCarter, an air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, said Monday.

The Cessna 172 single-engine plane had taken off from the airport around noon, reaching an altitude of 100 feet, before it nosedived into the ground, officials said.