Jan
14
Three months after a single-engine airplane crashed into their suburban Lake Worth mobile home, killing their 21-year-old daughter along with pilot Dan Shalloway, Domingo Galicia and Marta Lopez have yet to recover — either emotionally or financially.
Not only did they lose their beloved daughter, but they lost everything they owned, one of their attorneys, Dan Lustig, said Thursday.
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“It’s devastating how life changed for them in a second,” he said.
Hoping to rebuild their shattered lives, the couple this past week sued the prominent engineer’s estate in Palm Beach County Circuit Court. While they can’t get back their daughter, Banny Galicia, they hope to be able to one day afford to put a roof over their heads, Lustig said.
Since Shalloway’s Piper Archer aircraft crashed, creating a fireball that consumed their home in Mar-Mak Colony Club near Palm Beach State College, the couple has been living with family and friends, Lustig said.
“Each week it changes,” he said. “They don’t have a place to live.”
Shalloway’s widow, Lisa Tropepe, an engineer who worked alongside her husband at their engineering firm and also serves as a Palm Beach Shores town commissioner, couldn’t be reached for comment. She was named in the lawsuit because she is the personal representative of his estate.
While the National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the October crash, in the wrongful death lawsuit, Lustig claims Shalloway was negligent. Shalloway, 64, an avid pilot who was influential in Palm Beach County political circles, was flying from Kissimmee to the Palm Beach County Park Airport in Lantana. Just before the crash, he radioed that he was 3 miles from the general aviation airport on Lantana Road, according to the lawsuit.
He then radioed that he was turning left and headed for Runway 15. It was his last transmission.
Among the mysteries surrounding the crash is what happened in the 14 seconds between Shalloway’s final communication and the crash. At the time, aviation experts suggested that something either went wrong with the plane or something happened to Shalloway. The probe, they said, would be difficult because much of the evidence was destroyed in the fire.
Domingo Galicia, 68, was sitting on the porch of his home when the plane hit. Banny, a Lake Worth High School graduate who was studying at the nearby community college, was napping in her bedroom. Galicia was injured trying to get his daughter out of the burning home, attorneys Lustig, Mike Pike and Mariano Garcia wrote in the lawsuit.
“Instead (he) watched helplessly as the ensuing fire consumed it with his daughter inside,” they wrote.
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