FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — The three people who died after a Cessna 310R crashed and burned in Boca Raton on Friday morning as it tried to return to the airport have been identified as a teenage girl, her father and her grandfather, all from Palm Beach County.
The small plane, built in 1977, took off from the Boca airport just after 10 a.m. and was headed for Tallahassee but reported a mechanical issue and crashed while returning to the airport, officials said Friday. Kurt Gibson, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, told reporters the plane was in the air for no longer than 10 minutes.
Those who died were Robert Stark, 81, of Boca Raton; Stephen Stark, 54, of Delray Beach; and Brooke Stark, 17, of Delray Beach, Officer Jessica Desir, a spokesperson for Boca Raton Police, said late Friday night. Desir did not say who was flying the plane.
Both Robert and Stephen Stark were certified pilots.
Stephen Stark was a certified private pilot and had single-engine and multi-engine aircraft ratings, FAA records show. Robert Stark was also a certified private pilot with single-engine land and sea ratings, as well as multi-engine land and instrument ratings. An instrument rating is earned by training to fly solely by referencing instruments.
At 10:13 a.m., Boca Raton Airport personnel notified police and fire rescue that the plane was “having trouble maintaining control” and was circling the area, Desir said.
A 24-year-old man from Boca Raton driving a 2017 Toyota Prius was also injured when he lost control while driving north on Military Trail near the fiery crash and hit a tree. He was treated for non-life-threatening injuries, Desir said.
North Military Trail between Northwest 19th Street and Butts Road was closed all of Friday and is expected to remain closed through the weekend.
Prior to Friday, the plane was last flown on three short, local trips on March 14, once two days earlier and once in late February, each under an hour, according to FlightAware.
Pilot for life
Robert Stark had flown the Cessna 310R for many years, his friend Christopher Magon told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. The two met in 2011 while sharing a hangar at the Boca airport.
Stephen Stark, Robert’s son, had also previously flown the Cessna 310R. The family used it for recreation and business, Magon said. Brooke Stark was his daughter.
“A pilot for most of his life,” Robert Stark was a high-level aerobatic competition pilot and competed with the Cessna 310R, along with an aerobatic aircraft he sold within the last few years, Magon said.
“Bob was passionate about it. It was something that he loved,” Magon said.
He owned U.S. Info-Comm Inc., a national IT and communications company based in Deerfield Beach. State business records show it is a family-run business, with his son Stephen Stark listed as the company’s president.
The Sun Sentinel reported in 1999 that Robert Stark flew for the U.S. advanced aerobatics team in an Advanced World Championship held in the Czech Republic. He placed 16th out of 60.
He had been an aerobatics pilot since 1991 and by eight years later had competed in about 30 contests, with six first-place wins. He was able to perform hundreds of different figures in the air, he told the newspaper at the time, and regularly flew a pattern over the Palm Beach-Broward County line to prepare for contests.
In late 1999, Stark was the manager of the U.S. Aerobatics Team, part of the International Aerobatic Club. He was the president of the International Aerobatic Club Chapter 23 in 2022.
“My aerobatics flying has nothing to do with money; I fly aerobatics because I love it. It releases me from the pressures of life,” Robert Stark told the Sun Sentinel in 1999. “I fly for the thrill of competition, to fly better than my peers.”
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(Information from the Sun Sentinel archives contributed to this report.)
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