FIT Grounded All Flights To Allow Time For Grieving

All flight operations at the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT) flight school in Melbourne have been grounded following an accident in which four people were fatally injured. Those killed in the accident included two students, their instructor, and an FIT employee.

The four were returning from a training flight to the Bahamas when the plane went down. The flight had stopped in Palm Beach and was departing for Melbourne when it went down on takeoff. Those on board the aircraft, identified in a news release from the school, were:

• Kristopher Joy Henegar, Florida Tech flight student from Memphis, TN, age 22.
• Dheni “Jenny” Teresa Frembling, FIT Aviation employee and instructor on the aircraft from Melbourne, FL, age 26.
• Jordyn Leigh Agostini, Florida Tech student and FIT Aviation flight instructor from Broomall, PA, age 21.
• Kyle Henegar, passenger, brother of the flight student and a Florida Tech alumnus from Palm Bay, FL,age 26.

Orlando cable news channel 13 reports that the school had resumed flight operations shortly after the November 12 accident, but the decision to ground the schools planes was made after NTSB investigators told school officials that they might want to extend the grieving period. FIT has not set a date for a resumption of flight operations.

The NTSB is expected to have a preliminary report on the accident ready as early as this week.

FMI: www.fit.edu, www.ntsb.gov