CNN
—
Steve Mensch, the president and common supervisor of studio operations at Tyler Perry Studios, died in a aircraft crash Friday night time, in line with officers.
The Florida Highway Patrol stated troopers discovered Mensch useless on the scene of a crash simply after 8 p.m. in Citrus County, Florida. The company doesn’t identify Mensch as the person who died, although the Citrus County Sheriff’s Office stated it was Mensch, 62, from Fayetteville, Georgia.
“FHP Troopers responded to a single engine fixed-wing airplane crash on West White Dogwood Drive close to the intersection of US-98,” FHP stated in an announcement. “An grownup male occupant of the plane was pronounced deceased on the scene of the crash.”
In an e mail to CNN on Saturday, Tyler Perry Studios stated: “We are extremely saddened by the passing of our expensive good friend, Steve Mensch. Steve was a cherished member of our staff for greater than 8 years, and properly beloved in the neighborhood of Atlanta. It is tough to think about not seeing him smiling all through the halls. We will miss him dearly. Our coronary heart goes out to his household as all of us ship them our prayers.”
The Federal Aviation Administration stated the pilot was the one particular person on board the single-engine Vans RV12, although the company didn’t point out Mensch by identify.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigator is anticipated to go to the crash web site Saturday to start documenting the scene and inspecting the plane, the NTSB advised CNN in an e mail. A preliminary report from the company in regards to the crash is anticipated inside 30 days.
Mensch managed the day-to-day operations at Tyler Perry Studios, a 300-acre studio lot in Atlanta, Georgia, in line with his LinkedIn profile.
In 2019, Mensch gave CNN a tour of the power, saying, “What Tyler has constructed right here is the one main movement image studio on the East Coast.”
Mensch defined on the time how the studio he oversaw blended outdated with new, saying, “The historical past on this property is immense. Founded in 1885, now we have 40 buildings on the nationwide register, we’ve constructed a dozen state-of-the-art sound phases.”
“We can reap the benefits of 100 years of Hollywood historical past, of greatest practices and we’ve performed that in incorporating the phases,” he stated on the time. “Then we use the easiest know-how in our infrastructure, so now we have one of the best of each.”
Perry, who made historical past as the primary African American to completely personal a significant manufacturing studio, stated Mensch, “was actually a form soul and an ideal chief on the studio.”
“I’ve been making an attempt to know this tragedy all day—what went mistaken with that aircraft,” Perry stated in a publish on Instagram Saturday night time. “Steve liked flying, and he liked that aircraft; he took a lot pleasure in it.”
“We all adored him and are devastated that he’s gone. I’m praying for his household as all of us attempt to make sense of this heartbreak,” Perry added.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp expressed his condolences on social media after Mensch’s dying, praising him as “a superb man” and his contributions to the Peach State’s movie trade.
“An excellent man and an instrumental a part of a studio Georgia is proud to name its personal, his achievements made our state higher and introduced extra alternatives to its individuals,” Kemp stated on X. “His family members and all the Tyler Perry Studios staff can be in our ideas and prayers as they mourn this loss.”
CNN’s Lisa Respers France and Kia Fatahi contributed to this report.
