Pilot identified in deadly Wesley Chapel plane crash

A small plane crashed in a Wesley Chapel neighborhood Sunday morning, killing the pilot and narrowly missing a direct hit on any homes.The crash happened about 8:35 a.m. in the 25000 block of Aldus Drive, in the Grand Oaks subdivision off Wesley Chapel Boulevard, according to Pasco County Fire Rescue. Firefighters arrived to find burning wreckage and one home that had some damage.Pilot Michael Bailey, 59, was the only person aboard the plane when it crashed, according to the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office.Bailey lived in Dover and was certified to fly multiengine aircraft as an airline transport pilot and single-engine planes as a private pilot, according to the Federal Aviation Administration’s airmen database. Photos posted to Facebook by the Pasco County Firefighters Local 4420 show the wreckage burning in a grassy area directly behind a home that appeared to be blackened by the flames.The plane was a twin-engine Cessna 401B, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. A safety board spokesperson said more details on the crash were expected to be released Monday.Information on flightaware.com indicates the plane went down about a minute after taking off at 8:34 a.m. from Tampa North Aero Park, a small airport about a mile southeast of the crash scene. Christina Galbiati, who lives in the neighborhood, told Spectrum Bay News 9 that she was sitting on her front porch drinking coffee and her kids were in the back jumping on the family’s trampoline when they saw the plane come into view flying “very, very low.”“But everything looked mechanically fine,” Galbiati said. “I saw the propeller spinning, no fire or anything but it was really loud.”She wondered if the pilot was doing “some kind of maneuvers or something.”“And then I saw it go past and then turn back and smash right down,” Galbiati said.She said it appeared the pilot tried to put the plane down without crashing into any homes.“I think that the pilot’s a hero,” Galbiati said. “He knew that it was going down and he found a perfect spot to land.”