Driver Hit Floyd Bennett Field Building; Pearle Davis Died
A 33-year-old driver lost control during a driving lesson at Floyd Bennett Field, and 76-year-old passenger Pearle Davis died after the crash.
What We Know
A 33-year-old woman was driving a 2022 Toyota RAV4 inside Floyd Bennett Field on April 8, 2026, when police said she lost control and veered off the roadway into the side of a hangar used as a warehouse. The city crash record lists one person killed and two motorists injured at 5051 Flatbush Ave., and cites driver inexperience. The Daily News reported that Pearle Davis, 76, was riding in the back seat while the driver was being given a driving lesson during a birthday outing. Davis, the driver and a front-seat passenger were taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where Davis died.
A birthday outing ended at a hangar wall
Police told the Daily News that a 33-year-old woman lost control of a 2022 Toyota RAV4 at about 6:10 p.m. while driving inside Floyd Bennett Field. The driver veered off the roadway and into the side of a hangar now used as a warehouse off Flatbush Avenue.
The official crash record lists three occupants in the SUV: one motorist killed and two motorists injured. It records the driver as unlicensed and cites driver inexperience as a contributing factor.
Pearle Davis was remembered as adventurous and joyful
Pearle Davis, 76, was riding in the right rear seat. Her granddaughter, Kameeka Pope, told the Daily News that Davis was a great-grandmother from Bushwick who loved to dance, loved amusement parks and was “always the life of the party.”
Davis, the driver and a front-seat passenger were taken to Brookdale University Hospital, where Davis died. The Daily News reported that the driver remained unconscious and critically injured, while police said the front-seat passenger was in stable condition.
Reports pointed to a lesson and driver inexperience
The Daily News reported, citing ABC 7 New York, that the motorist was being given a driving lesson when the crash happened. The city crash record separately lists driver inexperience as the contributing factor.
At Floyd Bennett Field on Flatbush Avenue
The crash was recorded at 5051 Flatbush Ave. in Brooklyn. The Daily News placed it inside Floyd Bennett Field, the former municipal airport in Marine Park that is now part of the federal Gateway National Recreation Area.
The broader Flatbush Avenue corridor in Brooklyn has been one of the city’s recurring crash locations: since 2022, CrashCountNYC’s location context shows 2,981 crashes, 1,956 injuries, 125 serious injuries and 10 deaths along the corridor.