Two separate airplane crashes in Central Florida, one in Daytona Beach and one in Merritt Island, claimed the lives of four people Monday night.
In Daytona a student and an instructor died in a fiery crash shortly after takeoff from Daytona Beach International. Witnesses say the Cessna 172 they were flying appeared to lose engine power directly after takeoff and that the airplane attempted to make a turn back to the runway but crashed into a field on airport property.
Approximately 70 miles to the south another crash claimed the lives of two others when their Liberty XL2 went down in a residential area in Merritt Island. The XL2 landed in a backyard approximately 10 feet away from a house. Both occupants, 47-year-old John Brian Kish and 64-year-old Kenneth Allen Marks, were killed in the crash, but no one on the ground was injured. Marks was interested in purchasing the airplane from Kish, and the two men had taken the airplane up for a test flight.
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