“Unauthorised Solo Flight” Nigerian Student Pilot Dies in Plane Crash

The body of a student pilot believe to be that of Mark Ukaere was found outside a crashed plane which was reported missing on Wednesday.

WPLG‘s news crew in a helicopter spotted an alligator next to the wreckage of the small airplane crash.

Mark, a student of Dean International Flight School, had according to the school, gone on an unauthorised flight with the plane.

“The instructor came into the building, left him out there to bring the books and write up all the information. He did not bring the books back into the place. He decided to go fly himself, so he basically took the aircraft away from here without any authorization. Our policy at the school is very very critical, that every time anybody flies in the evening, they must fly with another pilot,” Robert Dean, the owner of the school said.

“I don’t want to believe that this thing has happened. I don’t want to believe that,” Mark’s roommate Patrick Shedrack said.

“All he does is go to his college, (come) back home (and) on Sundays, church. That’s all,” Shedrack added.

The plane had been missing since Saturday but was not reported to the FBI until Wednesday, NBC 6 reports.

“We started the whole investigation a couple of days ago as far as looking at search and rescue for this aircraft, but the individual was qualified to fly the aircraft,” Dean said.

They also obtained an exclusive radar image highlighting the flight path, showing where and how far Mark flew, and analyzed reports that revealed past problems at the aviation school.

“If you’re operating an operation like this, 50 aircraft, 60,000 miles per year, if you take our average and another schools’ average, we’re in a heck of a good shape,” Dean said, defending the reports of the past problems.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue said a downed Cessna 152 single-engine airplane was later found at 1:58 a.m. on Thursday.