PILOT CHARGED WITH DRUNK FLYING AFTER BUZZING HOMES IN MIRAMAR
CAROLYN MITTERMAIER Herald Staff Writer
A midnight pilot flying without lights was charged with drunken flying early Monday after he buzzed Miramar houses and chased a Metro-Dade helicopter into Joe Robbie Stadium, police said.
Dennis Irvan Angell, 25, was spotted about 12:30 a.m. doing loop-the-loops, spins and stalls in a banner plane, within 300 feet of a row of houses on Miramar Parkway, according to police reports.
Miramar officer John Petrone, who first spotted Angell, said the Piper Super Cub dive-bombed him when he flashed his spotlight on it.
Petrone alerted Metro-Dade police, who had a helicopter on patrol. The Metro-Dade pilot, officer Richard Shelton, followed Angell and ordered him down over the radio. Instead, Angell forced the police helicopter to take cover in Joe Robbie Stadium, just south of Miramar, to avert a midair collision.
Miramar police also notified the Broward Sheriff's Office, which dispatched a helicopter.
"Actually, I never saw the guy because there were no lights on the airplane," BSO pilot Lee McBrien said. "When Metro started chasing him, he came back up so radar at Fort Lauderdale could track him. The tower kept telling me this guy was all around me and I couldn't see him so I got out of there until he landed."
The banner plane docked in a hangar at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines shortly after 1 a.m. Minutes later, Miramar police impounded it and arrested Angell on a charge of operating an aircraft while intoxicated and reckless operation of an aircraft, both felonies.
A Breathalyzer test showed Angell's blood alcohol content at 0.16, four times the level allowed by the Federal Aviation Administration, police said. The legal alcohol limit for driving a car in Florida is 0.10.
Angell, of Austin, Minn., is a seasonal employee of Aerial Sign Co., based at North Perry. Aerial Sign president Jim Butler said Angell was flying the company's Piper Super Cub without Butler's knowledge. Angell has been suspended without pay.
"This astounds us that anyone could do that," Butler said.
Butler said the Piper is not equipped for night flight. There is damage to one of the plane wings that Butler believes happened during take-off or landing.
FAA officials confiscated Angell's commercial pilot's license pending an investigation. Federal records show no previous violations for Angell, who obtained his license in 1984.
Miramar has filed a claim for the plane under the state law that allows police to confiscate vehicles used to commit a felony. Aerial Sign intends to fight the attempt to confiscate the plane, Butler said. The plane was worth $65,000 when it was new in 1965, he said.
Angell is the second pilot flying out of North Perry Airport to be arrested in recent months on charges of reckless flying. Flight instructor Nancy Domkowski of Sunrise pleaded guilty in March to reckless operation of an aircraft and was sentenced to five years' probation.
Investigators said she had a blood alcohol level of 0.11 when she and a flight student crashed on a North Perry runway in July 1987. Her accident is one of 21 accidents or emergency landings at the crash-plagued airport in the past 6 1/2 years.
Angell was being held in the Broward County Jail on $10,000 bail Monday night. If convicted, he could face a $5,000 fine and five years in jail on each count.