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Body Of Florida Man Who Fell From Plane May Have Been Found

The sky above the Atlantic Ocean near Miami. What happened up there?
Arthur Mitchell
/
Landov
The sky above the Atlantic Ocean near Miami. What happened up there?

One important clue to solving the mystery of what happened this week over the Atlantic Ocean near Miami may have been discovered:

"Investigators have found a body believed to be that of Gerardo Nales, the passenger who reportedly plummeted to his death from a plane in mid-air Thursday," the Miami Herald reports. "The body was located at about 10:30 a.m. on the ocean side of a mangrove area just south of Southwest 184th Street, Miami-Dade Police said in a statement released Saturday."

If you haven't heard about this, The Associated Press previously summed up the story this way:

"The call for help came Thursday afternoon, when the pilot of a Piper PA 46 aircraft radioed 'mayday, mayday, mayday,' and told an air traffic controller that a door was ajar and a passenger had fallen from the plane. The aircraft had just taken off from Tamiami Executive Airport, located south of Miami."

The plane was about 2,000 feet above the ocean. According to the Herald, "investigators so far have declined to say why Nales and his pilot were even in the air. And police said they don't know whether Nales' fall was accidental or deliberate."

Authorities have not identified the pilot, though some local news outlets have reported a name. His mayday call has been posted online, including by NBC Miami.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Mark Memmott is NPR's supervising senior editor for Standards & Practices. In that role, he's a resource for NPR's journalists – helping them raise the right questions as they do their work and uphold the organization's standards.