Body Found In Mangroves, Identified As Man Who Fell From Plane
MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) -Miami- Dade Police have identified a body found over the weekend as that of Gerardo Nales, the man who either jumped or fell from a plane on November 14th.
Polcie said Nales' body was found Saturday in a mangrove area just south of 184th street.
The body was found by a Miami-Dade Marine Patrol boat searching for Nales. Crews had been searching since the afternoon of November 14 when a pilot reported Nales fell from a plane.
The passenger of a piper aircraft somehow fell from the plane and into the ocean below on November 14 not long after the flight took off from Tamiami Airport.
"The details involved in the incident raise a lot of questions," said Zabaleta. Officially, police are calling this a death investigation; however, a senior law enforcement source tells CBS 4 News investigators are working this case as a suicide and they do not suspect foul play. According to the source, Nales, 42, of Key Biscayne, was having family issues and suffering from depression.
The pilot of the plane in question lives in Coral Gables and has been identified as Felipe De Jesus Fons.
In radio transmissions on the website LiveATC.Net, the unidentified pilot calmly radioed the air traffic controller. LiveATC.Net provides live air traffic-control broadcasts from control towers and radar facilities around the world.
"I have a door ajar and a passenger that fell down. I'm six miles from Tamiami," the pilot said.
"You said you've got a passenger that fell out of your plane?" the air traffic controller responded.
"That's correct, sir," the pilot responded. "He opened the back door and he just fell out the plane."
"It's reasonable, anybody that falls from an aircraft without a parachute turns into a recovery effort and not a search and rescue," explained Lt. John Jenkins with Miami-Dade Police.
FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said the call came at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. The plane was flying at about 2,000 feet when the call came in.
Crews began searching an area about eight miles southeast of Tamiami Executive Airport, south of Miami, where the plane safely landed. The search expanded from the waters off Haulover Beach all the way south to Black Point Marina.
