Moments before a crash: 23-year-old pilot landed in the sea in front of stunned bathers
Faith Tankley took off from Florida on her way to the Bahamas to pick up her parents in the family plane, when a chain of malfunctions occurred: the landing gear broke and the right engine failed. Fearing a fire during a belly landing on a hard runway, she turned toward the sea, maneuvered between buildings and paddleboarders, and performed a smooth water landing.
Extraordinary footage arrived from the United States over the weekend of a 23-year-old pilot who found herself in distress, demonstrated impressive composure, and managed to prevent her light aircraft from crashing by landing it in the open sea in front of stunned bathers.
The incident occurred off the coast of Boca Raton in southern Florida on Saturday morning, around 9:40 AM local time. The pilot, Faith Tankley, had taken off in her family's light aircraft from Page Field Airport in Fort Myers on her way to the Bahamas, where she was supposed to pick up her parents.
During the flight, when she was about 24 kilometers from Boca Raton, Tankley discovered a chain of serious malfunctions. First, the plane's landing gear broke, and subsequently, the right engine failed. Tankley received permission to perform an emergency landing at the local airport, but feared the large amount of fuel remaining in the plane, which could have caused an explosion and fire during a belly landing on a hard runway.
Ultimately, Tankley decided to turn the plane toward the ocean. After a precise maneuver between buildings on the coastline and avoiding paddleboarders in the water, she performed a controlled and smooth water landing a few kilometers east of the airport.
Tankley has held a pilot's license for four years and has been flying since she finished high school. The aircraft involved is a twin-engine propeller plane from the Piper PA-30 series. After the landing, Tankley extracted herself from the intact plane unharmed, and about a minute later a local lifeguard reached her, followed by a fire and rescue boat. A few hours after the landing, the plane was mostly submerged, with only its tail visible.
The drama left eyewitnesses at the scene speechless:
«I was there when it happened. One moment I'm spraying sunscreen on my child, and the next moment I'm looking up and saying to myself, 'Is this something that's supposed to happen?'», recalled Maria Marx in a conversation with the WPBF network.
Among the eyewitnesses were the couple Michael and Alexis Aritzi, who were sailing in the area on a boat with their toddler son Sebastian and were the first to alert the Coast Guard. «We were the first boat that saw the plane landing on the coast this morning and responded to it», Alexis told WPBF. «The plane performed a slow descent and landed gently into the water».
