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Plane Retrieved From Bay After Fatal Crash Saturday

News Channel 8 photo by TODD DAVIS

Recovery workers retrieve the wreckage of an airplane that crashed Saturday killing the 3 people on board.

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By STEPHEN THOMPSON | The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 14, 2008

Updated: 01/13/2008 02:51 pm

ST. PETERSBURG Authorities retrieved a single-engine plane from Old Tampa Bay on Monday afternoon, two days after it crashed, killing the pilot and the pilot's parents.

Tim Monville, a senior air safety investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board, said a preliminary examination of the plane suggests the engine might still be operable.

"I believe the engine is capable of being run,'' he said today. "Nothing is broken in the engine that we can determine."

That does not necessarily mean, he said, that a faulty engine can be ruled out as a cause of the crash. A final determination as to the cause will not be made for months.

Investigators have cut the engine off the Cessna 172L, as well as the tail behind the wing, Monville said. They will be brought to an undisclosed location, and investigators will put fuel into the engine to see whether it will run, he said.

On Saturday, the Cessna was coming in for a landing at St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport before it plunged into the water.

The flight was cleared to land on one runway, but an air traffic controller said the aircraft appeared headed for a different one. The controller asked the pilot which runway he was lined up for. Monville did not release the pilot's response, saying the investigation is still at a preliminary stage.

The controller saw the plane roll to its right, "overcorrect to the left," roll to the right again and then pitch nose up and stall before rolling to the left and falling out of sight, Monville said. A witness reported seeing the plane overcorrect after lining up on the wrong runway and stalling shortly before the crash.

It has been suggested to the NTSB that an aerodynamic stall might be to blame. Such a stall sometimes occurs when a pilot does something suddenly with an aircraft and as a result there is insufficient airflow over the wing, causing the wing to lose lift.

Monville cautioned, though, that the NTSB hasn't concluded that's the cause.

Killed were Joseph Bellamy, 31, of Pinellas Park, who was piloting the aircraft, and his parents, Gordon and Susan Bellamy, 55 and 53 respectively, of Palatka, who were along on a sightseeing tour, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office has said.

Gordon Bellamy and his two brothers owned a plumbing business in Palatka, and Joseph Bellamy worked as a network engineer.

Family members told investigators Bellamy had been flying about four or five years and tried to fly once a month, Monville said. Donna Bellamy, Gordon's cousin, said Joseph Bellamy often took his parents flying, sometimes flying to Palatka to pick them up. The close-knit Bellamy family also went scuba diving and fishing together.

"None of the Bellamys are couch potatoes,'' she said.

The airplane is registered to the Pinellas Pilots Association, a Clearwater corporation that rented it to members, according to the group's Web site. Bellamy had reserved it from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The crash happened at 3:39 p.m.

One of the owners reported flying the plane recently with no problems, Monville said.

Reporter Jason Geary can be reached at (813) 865-1505 or jgeary@tampatrib.com. Reporter Stephen Thompson can be reached at (727) 451-2336 or spthompson@tampatrib.com.

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