Pilot who survived Banner plane crash speaks – NBC 6 South Florida

A pilot talks about his road to recovery, more than a year after he was seriously injured in a small banner plane crash at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines.

“I tell them, ‘I don’t feel my legs, my leg is numb, I don’t feel anything, I can’t move my legs,'” Assem Ashat said.

In May 2023, Ashat survived a near-fatal plane crash and suffered multiple fractures, including a spinal cord injury.

Doctors told him he would never walk again.

“There was a lot of pain, sometimes it took more than 45 minutes to get from the bed to the wheelchair,” he explained.

He worked for months to regain his strength.

“A lot of physical therapy… it was three to four hours a day,” Ashat said.

He said the yellow Piper PA-25 he was flying had a mechanical problem. A lawsuit was filed against Aerial Banners Inc. last November.

The National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation when the incident occurred. NBC 6 reached out to the station Friday to inquire about the cause of the crash, but NTSB said the final report is pending.

Still, Ashat refused to give up the dream he had had of flying since he was five years old. Doctors consider it a miracle that he can walk again.

Now he hopes to make a difference in the lives of other survivors who have also experienced traumatic accidents and to never give up because miracles do happen.

“It’s easy to be sad, to lie in bed and not do the work you’re supposed to do, but believe me, you have no idea how capable you are of changing your life,” he said.