MIAMI _ Dean International _ the flight school that owns the planes involved in last week's deadly midair crash over the Everglades _ has shut down, students and employees told the Miami Herald.
A memorial was held at the Kendall flight school Monday for the four people killed: Jorge Sanchez, 22; Ralph Knight, 72; Nisha Sejwal, 19; and Carlo Zanetti Scarpati, 22. That's when students and staff were told that the school has closed.
"We were planning on downsizing a little bit, and this took place, and there was just no way. We can't live with ourselves to know that this took place," Robert Dean, the flight school's owner told Local 10.
On July 17 a Piper PA-34 and a Cessna 172 _ which had both departed from West Kendall's Miami Executive Airport _ somehow crashed in the sky and plummeted to the ground, nine miles west of where they took off. After a frantic search, Miami-Dade police and fire rescue recovered the four bodies.
Police said Knight was a subcontracted inspector who worked for the FAA and that Sejwal was on a routine flight check to maintain her certification. Sanchez was a certified flight instructor at Dean. Information on Scarpati was not immediately available. Police believe Scarpati was flying with Sanchez and that Knight and Sejwal were in the other plane.
Records show the school's planes were involved in five accidents from 2007-2017, resulting in two fatalities. FAA records revealed that the flight school had 26 FAA accident/incident reports _ more than two per year _ since 2007.
Days after the crash, the flight school's website was hijacked by hackers.
"You have killed too many students," the site said in large capital letters.
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are currently investigating the cause of the crash.
