Young female pilot makes dramatic emergency sea landing in front of Florida beachgoers — and is quickly rescued uninjured
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A young female pilot stunned onlookers by crash-landing her twin-engine plane in the sea just off a busy Florida beach — and then emerging seemingly unscathed.
Faith Tenkley, 23, skillfully dodged buildings and visitors to land the small aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean close to Boca Raton on Saturday after her landing gear broke, forcing her to take emergency action, she told Gulf Coast Now.
“One second I’m spraying sunscreen on my kid. The next I’m looking up and saying, ‘Is that supposed to be happening?'” shocked beachgoer Maria Marks told WPBF.
Tenkley had been alone in her family’s Piper PA30 plane as she planned to fly around 150 miles from Fort Myers to pick up her parents in the Bahamas, when she started having mechanical issues about 15 miles off Boca, she said.
The experienced young pilot initially planned to make an emergency landing at Boca, but when she realized her landing gear wasn’t working, she worried that a hard landing on the runway in a recently refueled plane could spark a fire.
🤯Wow! A small plane flew right past me while I was running, and I recorded it making an emergency landing in the ocean near South Beach Park in Boca Raton, Florida.
I ran down the beach and caught up to it, saw the passenger safely on shore and watched the plane begin sinking… pic.twitter.com/8fNst7sxYE
With the engine on the right side not working, she decided to bring the plane down in the water at around 9:40 a.m.
Dramatic video shared on X shows Tenkley dodging both buildings and paddleboarders before finding an empty spot next to the beach as beachgoers look on in amazement.
The plane made a “slow descent” before it “delicately landed” on the water, according to another witness, Alexis Arizzi, who was on a boat when they saw the aircraft go down and notified the Coast Guard.
A lifeguard got to the plane within a minute, with a fire rescue boat from Boca Raton Ocean Rescue close behind.
No injuries were reported, but Tenkley, who has been a licensed pilot for four years, was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, Boca Raton police said.
A pilot who was on the beach praised Tenkley for skillfully handling the emergency.
“The most important part they teach you in emergency support or anything is to fly the airplane all the way down. Based on the fact that it’s all in one piece … it seems like the pilot did that,” said the pilot, who asked not to be identified.