Plane Crash Kills Pace Pilot

Crash Pilot A Florida pilot is dead after his plane crashed in Escambia County.

by Debbie Williams

Published: Tue, January 06, 2009 - 6:42 pm CST

"It just dropped out of the sky."
A single-engine, crop duster type plane lies tangled in the brush. Moments before -- Jim Baker heard a strange sound and saw the plane fly over his hangar. "When I walked out the front door I heard a popping noise and I looked up and said uh-oh. I thought he was going to get my hangar but he was trying to make it back to the field."
The wreckage of the plane is just beyond that wood line about a hundred yards away from the runway. Baker was one of the first people to get to the pilot.
"I saw him go in. I ran and told my wife to call 911 grabbed my cell phone and went into the woods."
But it was too late, Darren Meek of Pace, died on impact.
"We had been talking to Darren five minutes before that and he'd gone up and was doing some practicing and they say the engine kind of acted funny next thing I know I pull across and he's in the trees there," says former pilot Ron Bean.
Known for towing banners at Pensacola Beach, Meek was considered an excellent pilot and someone who accepted the risk of doing what he loved.
"It's just like driving down the road you can be perfectly fair and honest and everything else and somebody runs into you. It's a chance you take when you get out of bed in the morning."
Meek is survived by a wife and two children.
Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the crash.

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