Pilot's widow speaks out after plane crash

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (WSVN) -- The widow of a South Florida pilot killed in a plane crash is speaking out in his defense.

Kim Waller was married to Steve Waller for 16 years. Steve, along with two others, were killed in a tragic plane crash Friday afternoon.

Steve was flying the twin-engine Piper Cheyenne propeller plane when it crashed shortly after take-off from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport into a warehouse parking lot.

Steve's boss, Wallis Watson, of Boca Raton, and his son Kevin Watson, of Pompano Beach, were inside the plane, as they were testing avionics that was installed.

Kim said she knows it was not her husband's fault. "It wasn't his fault. No, it was mechanical, it had to be," she said.

Witnesses are convinced that the right engine had issues. The dead engine is believed to have caused the plane to roll right at an altitude too low for the pilot to recover from. "You see the plane just sideways, and then it went behind the building," said witness Cesar Guzman.

"We will also be gathering information about the pilot's background, history, experience, type of experience," said a National Transportation Safety Board investigator.

Kim said her last talk with her husband was, "An hour before he was with Wallis, and they were going to do a test fly for him," she said.

Crews have cleared up the rubble that was left from the plane to begin a full investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board usually takes up to 12 month to come up with a definitive answer.

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