A 23-year-old pilot walked away from a plane wreck unscathed after deliberately landing her twin-engine plane in the Atlantic Ocean.
Faith Tenkley landed in front of shocked beachgoers in Boca Raton, Florida, avoiding people in the sea and buildings in the process.
Tenkley had been flying her family’s plane from Page Field Airport in Fort Myers to South Bimini Airport in the Bahamas to visit her parents when she began experiencing mechanical problems about 15 miles west of Boca Raton, she told Gulf Coast News.
She said her original plan had been to change course and perform an emergency landing at Boca Raton Airport but there was a problem – her landing gear broke.
Tenkley, who has been a pilot for four years, feared that with the large amount of fuel still in the aircraft, attempting to land on a runway without landing gear could result in a hard landing, with the potential to cause a fire.
As her journey continued, the right engine of the twin-engine Piper failed, at which point she made the decision to land in the Atlantic Ocean.
After flying around buildings and avoiding paddleboarders, Tenkley found a clear patch of ocean and landed in the water against all odds.
Remarkably, she managed to get out of the plane without any help and escaped with no injuries.
While no injuries were reported, Tenkley was taken to hospital as a precaution.
The plane landed around 9.40am on Saturday, August 22, with police, lifeguards, and the US Coast Guard arriving shortly after.
Speaking to WPBF, onlooker Maria Marks said: ‘I was there when it happened. One second I’m spraying sunscreen on my kid. The next, I’m looking up and saying, “Is that supposed to be happening?”‘
Another witness, Alexis Arizzi, said: ‘We were the first boat to witness and respond to the plane landing in the beach this morning. The plane was making a slow descent and delicately landed into the water.
‘My husband is an aircraft mechanic at Boca Airport and has been discussing this with the local aviation community all day.’
On Sunday morning, removal crews had retrieved the Piper PA30 series twin-engine propeller plane from the water near South Beach Park.
An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the crash has been launched.
