(WDRB/InvestigateTV) — Anytime she hears a plane engine overhead — no matter where she is — the sound stops Megan Bishop in her tracks.
Standing in the South Florida sun, scanning the sky for the source of the recognizable hum, Bishop said it’s been that way for the last five years: When she hears the sound, she often can’t continue what she’s doing until she locates the passing aircraft.
"I did miss one once, and it changed my whole life," she said.
In March 2021, Bishop was headed home, driving along the road that borders North Perry Airport.
Megan Bishop with her son, Taylor(Courtesy of Megan Bishop)
She said she remembers her 4-year-old son Taylor was buckled in the back in his car seat. He was playing happily in the moments before she saw people ahead, locking eyes not with another driver — but a pilot.
"I just remember seeing their faces. It’s like my mind just blocked out the impact from the crash," Bishop said, recalling the moments before the accident that would change everything.
"I remember just tensing up in that moment because you shouldn’t ever see pilots’ faces when you’re in your car, driving down the street. And I knew at that moment it was not going to be good."
It was, in fact, catastrophic.
A six-seat, single-engine aircraft crashed into Bishop’s car just a few feet shy of the airport fence. The passenger’s side was a tangled web of twisted metal and shattered glass — the car unrecognizable.
Taylor, who had been seated there, was taken to the hospital, but he did not survive.
The wreckage of the small plane after it crashed into Bishops car and ultimately impacted a perimeter fence of the airport.(NTSB photograph accessed via public document portal)
The passenger side of Bishop's car after it was hit by the small aircraft.(NTSB photograph accessed via public document portal)
Authorities broke the news to his mother as she was being treated for her own serious injuries.
"He put up a really big fight. But the fight was too big for his body and he didn’t make it," Bishop said.
"I don’t remember anything after that. It was like my world went silent. And it’s been a quiet world ever since."
The accident is among the hundreds that have occurred in close proximity to airports in the last decade, with dozens of people killed and hundreds injured, InvestigateTV found.
"Aviation is still the safest way to go, but when it goes wrong, it goes real wrong," said former commercial pilot turned social media educator Captain Steve Scheibner.
While some communities in these danger zones are demanding solutions — a tangle of often-competing priorities has left many only able to keep a wary eye on the sky.
InvestigateTV and the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University found that just like Pembroke Pines, many communities’ airports are surrounded by dense development, and some experts like Scheibner said there needs to be better communication about the risks.
"They need to have the dialogue about the safety of airports and the urban sprawl around them," Scheibner said.
‘We cannot have planes falling out of the air, crashing into people’
Aviation accidents near the airport have been a particular problem in Pembroke Pines, where InvestigateTV found that the NTSB has investigated at least a dozen crashes within five miles of North Perry Airport just since Taylor Bishop’s death in 2021. Three of those subsequent accidents were fatal.
Other recent crashes near North Perry could have been far more tragic, including a plane that went down on the grounds of a state hospital in May and an July 2025 crash into a neighborhood, where neighbors pulled the occupants out of the burning aircraft.
@tee.jordan50 Pembroke Pines Plane Crash #northperryairport #pembrokepines #planecrash #abcnews #heroneighbors #ringcam ♬ original sound - T-Jordan
"They need to have the dialogue about the safety of airports and the urban sprawl around them," Scheibner said.
‘We cannot have planes falling out of the air, crashing into people’
Aviation accidents near the airport have been a particular problem in Pembroke Pines, where InvestigateTV found that the NTSB has investigated at least a dozen crashes within five miles of North Perry Airport just since Taylor Bishop’s death in 2021. Three of those subsequent accidents were fatal.
Other recent crashes near North Perry could have been far more tragic, including a plane that went down on the grounds of a state hospital in May and an July 2025 crash into a neighborhood, where neighbors pulled the occupants out of the burning aircraft.
Castillo, who has served in city government since 2004, has long been vocal about the need for changes to improve safety at the airport. At a meeting of the City Commission in August 2025, he introduced a resolution calling for a study of the facility’s safety measures and environmental impacts.
"We are sick and tired of having planes crash down on our communities," Castillo said. "We cannot have planes falling out of the air, crashing into people."
Broward County, which owns and operates North Perry Airport, agreed to a new, year-long study looking at operations and accident prevention strategies.
In response to questions from InvestigateTV, a spokesperson provided an email statement saying "safety is always a top priority" for the Broward County Aviation Department (BCAD).
In its statement, the county pointed to a May 2026 inspection of the airport conducted by the Florida Department of Transportation that examined airfield markings and signs, runway or taxiway lights and other safety areas. That inspection, the spokesperson said, returned no safety, regulatory or operational violations — with the county emphasizing the facility has received the same clean results in inspections dating back more than two decades.
"While BCAD will not speculate on the cause or causes of aircraft accidents involving HWO (North Perry Airport), we always cooperate with the authorities as they conduct their investigations. That said, we’re saddened by and regret the loss of life or serious injury that may result from airplane accidents that are associated with our airport due to the pilots’ planned arrival or departure activity. As the accident information in the August 2025 Town Hall Presentation showed, the common probable causes of aircraft accidents at HWO, based on National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigations, do not typically identify/include issues specific to the airport’s roles and responsibilities," the statement said.
Still, for Castillo, the study is a major victory.
"We’re making headway with this fight, which will continue until one of two things happens: the airport is vastly improved in terms of their safety and reliability or they close. I don’t really care which it is," he said.
"For us, it’s very simple. Be safe or be gone."
A pattern of crashes near runways across the nation
Aviation accidents that happen just off the runway are not unique to Pembroke Pines. Cities and towns from coast to coast are grappling with the impacts of urban sprawl that have landed homes and businesses just steps off the runway. InvestigateTV, along with the Arnolt Center for Investigative Journalism at Indiana University, analyzed NTSB data dating back to 2015, and identified more than 400 crashes that occurred within a quarter mile radius of a public airport runway — at least 79 of which included at least one fatality.
A review of these events found many resulted in aircraft crashing into homes, businesses and other populated areas:
- A small plane crashed into the parking lot of a Pennsylvania retirement community in March 2025 when the pilot was distracted by an open cabin door and lost speed.
- Two pedestrians were injured in Muncie, Indiana in April 2024 when a small plane crashed after weather conditions are believed to have disoriented the pilot, causing him to lose control of the aircraft.
- A medical helicopter taking off from a Florida airport experienced an engine fire and crashed into an apartment building in August 2023, killing a woman inside
- In August 2020, a student pilot attempted a forced landing on a residential Connecticut street after the small plane’s engine stuttered, but collided with and ended up suspended on the roof of a house
While a majority of the crashes involved smaller, general aviation aircraft and occurred at small or medium-sized airports, other events involved large, commercial aircraft.
In November 2025, a UPS cargo plane leaving Louisville, Kentucky dropped an engine during takeoff and crashed into an industrial area adjacent to the airport — killing the three crew members onboard and 12 people on the ground.
This past May, a 767 landing at Newark Airport was just 15 feet above the ground when it crossed over the New Jersey Turnpike. Surveillance cameras inside a bakery truck captured it being toppled by a light post that had been clipped by the airliner in what Scheibner, the former pilot, said was an incredibly close call.
"The airplane just missed the truck by this much, so it actually could have been a lot worse," said Scheibner, the former pilot.
After decades in the cockpit of both commercial airliners and military planes, Scheibner is now at the helm of TikTok and YouTube accounts where more than a million followers watch as he breaks down aviation accidents and trends.
"The sad part about this whole process is it’s not until there’s enough blood shed that anybody pays attention and does anything about it," he said.
Back in 1989, Federal Aviation Administration rules began calling for "runway protection zones" that extend from 200 to 2,500 feet from the end of a runway, depending on its length, the size of the aircraft using it and visibility.
A diagram from FAA guidance outlining a basic "Runway Protection Zone" or "RPZ"(FAA Advisory Circular 150/5300)
That area, FAA guidance suggests, would ideally be kept completely clear, not only to provide pilots with safer takeoff and landing conditions — but because it is the most vulnerable.
In the 1990s the NTSB recommended the FAA require airports to proactively establish or upgrade their runway safety areas to meet the new standards, but it wasn’t until 2003 — when a commercial airliner overshot the runway and ended up on a public road in Burbank, California — that the FAA agreed.
Two years later, a 737 had a similar crash at Midway airport in Chicago, where it hit a vehicle on a road just 82 feet from the end of the runway, killing a six-year-old child.
According to NTSB documents, the FAA and the airport knew about the risk prior to the crash and had looked at extending the buffer from 82 to 1,000 feet, but found it to be "both undesirable and economically infeasible" because the airport would have to purchase the land and would require businesses, residences and roadways to be relocated.
InvestigateTV found in a previous investigation that aviation safety recommendations issued by the NTSB often go unaddressed for years despite repeated crashes.
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As a pilot, and having dissected numerous crashes for his viewers, Scheibner said it’s a frustrating pattern.
"[Regulators] should see the danger that lay ahead … I’m not convinced that they do a great job at that," he said.
‘Incompatible’
In 2022, the FAA released updated guidance on what kinds of land use it considers "compatible" for properties immediately adjacent to an airport.
"Incompatible land uses such as those that pose physical obstructions, create visual distractions, and attract wildlife can threaten the safety of aircraft operations. They can also affect the safety of persons located near the airport," the guidance reads.
But it also acknowledges that for many airports, it’s too late — the development has already happened.
"I don’t know that you can go back. This is the tough part," Scheibner said. "Going back to get rid of homes or get rid of that, I think you’ve got to live with what you got at this point."
Analysis of FAA and U.S. Census data done by InvestigateTV found millions of Americans live or work within a quarter-mile of a public airport runway — and Scheibner said many may not even realize the risk.
That’s why he said he believes there should be formal disclosure for those who live close to runways or are considering it.
However, right now, such disclosures are not all that common. A handful of states, such as California, Arizona and Virginia, include proximity to airports as one of the required disclosures when selling a home, and some local governments have their own requirements, but in many cases those disclosures are primarily about the noise — not safety — and often don’t apply to rental properties.
Scheibner said he also supports a moratorium on development for miles around airports, something that’s also uncommon, as are dedicated zoning restrictions for properties right next door, even in communities InvestigateTV found had repeated crashes.
But it has been done — such limitations have been looked at in certain states, and are something the FAA suggests in the guidance released in 2022, and when Congress passed the agency’s reauthorization in 2024, the bill included a provision charging the FAA with "discouraging local encroachment of residential or other buildings near airports."
FAA officials also have jurisdiction to review development plans for projects that fall within "runway protection zones," and airports are required to advocate in favor of compatible zoning and land use — but the only enforcement mechanism available to the FAA is its control of certain grant funding.
For now, Scheibner says cockpit technology and pilot training are the best tools to protect people on the ground.
In communities where these kinds of crashes are happening repeatedly, however, he said concerned citizens have to speak up.
"If you think there’s a safety problem, you get involved: the old fashioned write a letter, send a text, send an email, go to Washington, D.C., talk to the FAA. They’ll look at this stuff," he said. "If enough people complain about something — I’m still an optimist on the inside — I think things can change.
’He should be here’
Such calls for change continue in Pembroke Pines, where the name of Megan Bishop’s son marks a street she can barely bring herself to drive.
"It’s painfully beautiful. It hurts," she said. "He shouldn’t be on a sign. He should be here."
Taylor Bishop is still here, in a way. Families still bring toys they think he’d like to the site of the crash. And a memorial bench marks the spot where his life was taken.
Pembroke Pines renamed the street where Taylor Bishop was killed "Taylor Bishop Avenue" in honor of the late four year old, and a memorial bench decorated with his favorite things was installed by the community.(InvestigateTV)
The brightly colored bench is covered in drawings of trucks and trains, and a stuffed blue teddy bear he took everywhere. In the center is a photo of the curly-haired boy with a wide smile across his face. Bishop said he was chasing her when the picture was taken. But even years after the crash, it’s his mother who is still chasing him as the surrounding community chases answers.
A photo of Taylor Bishop running toward his mother is etched on the memorial bench honoring him.(InvestigateTV)
"I can’t wait to be reunited with him one day. I’m not rushing it, in God’s time," Bishop said. "But I can’t wait to see him look back at me and be with him again."
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