An engine fire may be to blame for the crash of a small plane in the Everglades that claimed the lives of four people, reports the Sun-Sentinel.
Miguel Gerov who owned half the plane with its pilot, Bruce Barber, said investigators believe smoke filled the cockpit of the plane from the fire and sent the plane into a nose dive into a the swamp.
Barber, his wife and son and a family friend were flying home Sunday after attending the Florida-Tennessee football game in gainesville on Saturday. Barber radioed to air traffic controllers that the engine on his small Piper PA-32 plane was on fire and he tried to put it out with an extinguisher.
The mayday call was the last words anyone heard from the Gator booster.
"Bruce got incapacitated after that," Gerov told the Sun-Sentinel.
Authorities found four bodies among the wreckage on Monday, but have yet to confirm that it is the Barber family. Family friends like Gerov have no doubt it's them.
The Barbers lived in Sea Ranch Lakes. Chloe barber, the youngest child, did not make the trip with her family and is now living with grandparents in Tampa.
