8 Die in Crash of Plane Near W. Palm Beach

A twin-engine plane carrying the founder of a hair replacement company hit the edge of a shopping center and crashed in flames early Friday, killing all eight people aboard.

The plane was five miles from Palm Beach International Airport when the pilot asked for permission to land about 3:30 a.m. It hit a corner of a roof, clipped power lines and burst into flames half a mile from the runway.

No one on the ground was hurt.

“The voice--the pilot or whoever it was talking--said they had the airport in sight,” said Alan Yurman, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator. Then the pilot shouted “Mayday!” into the radio.

“There was no explanation of what the emergency was,” Yurman said.

Seven of the victims were affiliated in some way with the Chambers Hair Institute in Delray Beach, which also has a clinic in Troy, Mich., Yurman said. The eighth was the pilot of the Beechcraft King Air BE-90.

The victims were pilot George Rivera, 47, of Tampa; Dr. Constantine Peter Chambers, 64, of Manalapan, who is the founder of the hair clinics; Andrea Coolidge, 31; Shawn Meckelburg, 19; Erica Jones, 22; Mindy Marino, 17; Peter Passaris; and Alan Steven Rivera, 19. All were from Florida.

Chambers, who owned the plane, had a student pilot’s license. Alan Yurman, an investigator with the NTSB, said it’s unknown yet who was piloting the plane at the time of the crash.

The reason for the trip wasn’t clear. The pilot took off from near Pontiac, Mich., and was bound for Boca Raton. He made one stop in Atlanta.

“Our office is temporarily closed due to a tragedy in our family,” a recording at the hair replacement company said.

The plane was registered as an air ambulance, but Yurman said he didn’t know if it ever was used for medical purposes.