Investigators hope DNA will ID men killed in plane crash

With the help of DNA, authorities hope to confirm by Friday the identities of two men who died in a small plane that crashed and burned in Fort Lauderdale.

Soon after the twin-engine Cessna took off Saturday afternoon from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport, it crashed into a warehouse across the street from the airfield.

Though the building at 1001 W. Cypress Creek Rd. was occupied with people at a center for autistic children and other businesses, no one else was injured by the fire that destroyed part of the northern facade.

The Broward County Crime Lab is testing DNA taken from the remains of the two men who were in the plane.

The test results will be interpreted by the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office.

“We’re working toward identifying the men by the end of the week,” Dr. Craig Mallak, the Broward County Medical Examiner, said Tuesday.

The Cessna was registered to Eladio Marquez, 51, of Rahway, N.J., who was also the owner, Federal Aviation Administration records show.

He was a flight instructor who kept his plane at Linden Airport, also in New Jersey.

Fort Lauderdale police have not identified the dead men, but Marquez’s widow said her husband was aboard the fatal flight.

Reached at her New Jersey home Tuesday, Belkis Marquez said she and Eladio Marquez were married 12 years and were raising four sons.

“He’s an excellent pilot and instructor, and never was in any accident before Saturday,” Marquez said.

The FAA was not able to confirm Eladio Marquez’s safety record on Tuesday.

Marquez met her husband in the Dominican Republic and said he brought her to the United States to be with him.

“I will miss everything [about him],” Marquez said. “He was the best spouse, the best father for my sons, an incredible man.

“I can say nothing bad about him,” she said. “No complaints, nothing. He was almost perfect for me.”

Paul Dudley, director of Linden Airport, called the deaths “a terrible tragedy.”

“Eladio Marquez was a well-known and wellliked individual at Linden Airport,” Dudley said. “We are devastated for his family. I can’t imagine what they are going through.”

The wreckage was removed from Executive Office Park on Monday night and taken to a secure facility, the National Transportation Safety Board said.

An NTSB investigator told reporters that a person in the plane advised the airport control tower before crashing that he had a fire in the left engine and a loss of power.

Those events will be studied, along with weather conditions at the time the flight ended, witness accounts and the aircraft’s maintenance records.

The federal agency’s preliminary report on the crash and how it may have happened could be available in 10 days.