You may not recognize the name, but you probably remember hearing about an eighteen year old pilot who lost his life in May of 2022 after taking off from Timmerman Airport. His family sat down with WTMJ’S Libby Collins to discuss the accident, what made Daniel special, and the hope that has come from their tragedy. Listen in the player above.
A partial transcript is provided below, courtesy of eCourt Reporters.
LIBBY COLLINS: Can you tell us what that day was like?
BENNY PERELMAN: He never knew if he was coming because he didn’t know if — how was the weather, if there is a plane available. And then he said, hey, my plane is available for solo, so I’m going to drive over. So, I met him at home. And then he was planning just to take the car and drive, and I said, you know what, I have nothing until the end of the day, let me take you. And on the way, we call Ana and she said, hey, I’m done with clinic early and I can meet you there.
He went to the plane, he walks to the plane, he does check, he taxied. And we’re just standing behind the fence, and he gives us thumbs up, and then he took off. And he landed and took off again, and as he was taking off again — I had installed some flight tracker application on my phone. The first thing I noticed on the tracker application, that the marker of his plane doesn’t progress at the same rate as it was. I looked up, and the plane goes down.
We chased the ambulance like crazy, and then was the nightmare the next day-and-a-half where we deep inside I think knew that nobody survived this.
