Plane Crash at Sun N Fun Splash In Today

[newamiga]

Been working over at Lakeland all week so we went over to the Splash in base this afternoon. Right as we were walking down to the dock we saw a large group of people looking towards the end of the lake. A Sea Ray has just crashed on takeoff. It wasn't entirely clear what happened. A couple witnesses told us they saw it stall and spin on take off. A second group said they thought the wing strut had given and the right wing collapsed. The net effect was a crash. Divers were in the water and got one male out of the water quickly and to the dock. He appeared to be ok but in shock. It wasn't clear if there was a second person in the water or not but there were still divers down there for quite a while so we sort of assumed their may have been. The plane appeared totalled.

Apparently just before or after this another Sea Ray sustained significant damage to its tail and aborted a takeoff. Not a good day at the sea base today.

Carl

[designrs]

Here's an article with more info including a few quotes from the accident pilots:
http://www.baynews9.com/content/news/ba ... ht_pl.html

[drseti]

Very glad to see there were no serious injuries.

[zaitcev]

The forum speculation is that since the 6061 aluminum attachment plates remained intact while the AN bolt sheared, it could be overtorquing.

The other incident appears to be a structural failure as well, although in the tail area.

Still, I'm not read to rub Helen with this. When we have 200+ SeaMaxes flying no doubt we'll see some odd crashes like this.