Four passengers survived after their single-engine plane crashed into Tampa Bay on Wednesday afternoon after taking off from Albert Whitted Airport. Jonah Hinebaugh | The Crow’s Nest
By Anna Bryson
A single-engine plane believed to be departing Albert Whitted Airport crashed into Tampa Bay on Wednesday.
The plane, believed to be a Cessna 172, crashed around 12:30 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard’s St. Petersburg Sector told the Tampa Bay Times.
The Times reported that two Coast Guard petty officers conducting training exercises on the water noticed the splash, but a local boater and three others were the first to reach the scene and rescue the four passengers from the plane.
The passengers were then transferred to the Coast Guard crew’s rescue boat, according to the Times report. One passenger was taken to Bayfront Health’s St. Petersburg hospital as a non-emergency patient, the Times said.
While the passengers were safe, the plane was left to sink into the bay about 100 yards offshore.
The small municipal airport, a close neighbor of USF St. Petersburg for decades, has seen numerous crashes over the years.
Several of them were serious, even fatal:
- On April 8, 1995, a Piper Cherokee approaching the airport crashed into a neighborhood half a mile southwest of the campus. It struck the roof of a vacant house at 645 15th Ave. S before crumpling into the side yard. The pilot and his passenger were killed. No one in the neighborhood was injured.
- On Nov. 27, 1996, the pilot of a Lake LA-4 made a mayday call about 4 miles north of the airport. Moments later, the plane crashed into a church yard, seriously injuring the pilot.
- On Aug. 1, 2012, one man died and another was injured when their Luscombe Silvaire nose-dived into the main runway shortly after taking off. The plane came to rest about 100 feet from the fence at the west end of the runway, just across from the university at First Street S.
- On Sept. 15, 2014, a Piper Cherokee apparently ran out of gas while approaching Albert Whitted from the north. It narrowly missed, hitting a condominium tower, striking some trees and crashing into Vinoy Park, less than a mile from the airport and the campus.
- On Oct. 18, 2017, a Cessna 402B approaching Albert Whitted Airport made an emergency landing on 18th Avenue S, just 1.5 miles southwest of the university.
The cause of Wednesday’s crash is still under investigation.
Information from the Tampa Bay Times was used in this report.
