Good Samaritans Pull Aircraft-Crash Victims to Safety from Everglades Canal
Two occupants of an ultralight aircraft that crashed into a Florida Everglades canal early Saturday were pulled from the water by Good Samaritans who worried alligators would get to them first. NBC 6 reporter Donna Rapado has the story.
A 25-year-old Miami man’s body on Thursday was pulled from a lake near Dolphin Mall, ending a search that began when his car was found a day earlier in the water, the Florida Highway Patrol said.
A Saturn Ion involved in an accident was found by mall security personnel in about 3 feet of water Wednesday. But despite using an aircraft for a bird’s eye view of the lake, authorities found no immediate sign of its driver, Benjamin Rodriguez, the agency said.
Thursday, Rodriguez hadn’t returned home and a trooper returned to the lake. Miami-Dade divers were requested to scour the lake and found the body, the agency said.
The Highway Patrol determined Rodriguez had been driving on the exit ramp from Florida’s Turnpike Extension onto Northwest 12th Street, when his car went across a median curb, entrance ramp lanes and grass embankment before going under a fence and into the lake, the agency said.