Friends of a pilot who was killed when the banner plane he was flying crashed on a Hollywood roadway are remembering the man as an avid flyer and a good person.
Katherine Artiglio said she knew something was wrong when her normally dependable friend Mitchell Knaus wasn't returning her text messages Wednesday.
"He said 'I'll be flying the yellow plane today, come and see me'…and so I was texting him back and he never answered after that," Artiglio told NBC6. "I said 'this isn’t like Mitch. He’s really dependable, why isn’t he answering me back?'"
Artiglio said Knaus used to work for her driving limousines. They were texting to meet up for dinner, but that was the last she heard from him.
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Knaus was flying the single-engine yellow Piper plane that went down on North Park Road shortly after 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, not far from a Target shopping center.
The 28-year-old pilot, the only person on board, was killed when the plane slammed into the ground and erupted in flames.
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In 911 calls released Thursday, witnesses described the moment the plane crashed.
"Hi, I'm on North Park Road, right in front of Target, and it looks like a small airplane just crashed in the road," a woman tells a 911 operator. "It's on fire, yes, it exploded."
"I heard a loud boom and it immediately engulfed in flames. So I would say that whoever was in it did not likely get out," she added.
Knaus had moved from California to South Florida just a month and a half ago, said his roommate Daniel Corti.
"The morning of the accident, we went jogging together in the park close by the house and then we just (said) goodbye, see you later tomorrow or tonight, and then the accident happened," said Corti.
Federal Aviation Administration officials said the plane belonged to Aerial Banners, which uses planes to advertise for companies.
Corti said Knaus was an avid flyer who'd been excited about his new job flying the banner planes.
"He was telling me about how his training was going and he was pretty excited about his new job," Corti said. "He was a great man, very nice, very respectful, with great plans for his life."
A spokesman for the NTSB said Thursday that Knaus had around 325 hours of commercial flight experience but less than 20 hours of flight experience with the type of banner plane that crashed.
The NTSB said the plane had taken off from North Perry Airport and was hauling a large banner advertising Aerial Banners' services.
Aerial Banners was linked to five crashes and emergency landings from 2014 to 2019, NBC6 found. A crash from 2019 had had some of the worst wreckage after the plane crashed into the side of a condo building near Fort Lauderdale and plummeted 14 stories onto a pool deck, killing the pilot.
NBC6 reached out to Aerial Banners but the company is not commenting unntil the NTSB investigation is complete, which could take up to a year.
Meanwhile, those who knew Knaus said he'll be dearly misssed.
"He was in the military and liked to sky dive," Artiglio said. "Just very hard working, caring. He’s the kind of guy that you can always depend upon."
"It's super sad," Corti said.
