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Pilot In Davis Islands Plane Crash Is Tampa Plastic Surgeon

News Channel 8

The two men aboard the plane were taken to Tampa General Hospital with injuries that were not life-threatening.

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TBO.com

Published: November 28, 2008

Updated: 11/28/2008 04:08 pm

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• Plane Clipped Mast

Dan Greenwald

TAMPA - A local plastic surgeon and a 19-year-old man were injured when a single-engine sport plane crashed while landing at Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands this morning.

Pilot Dan Greenwald, 48, and passenger Mitch Kirby, 19, both of Tampa, are being treated at Tampa General Hospital for injuries that are not life-threatening, according to Tampa Fire Rescue.

Greenwald was flying an Extra 300 single-engine craft that left Peter O. Knight about 10:30 a.m. for a leisure flight, authorities said.

The aircraft, heading southwest, came in over the Port of Tampa about 11:14 a.m., clipped a 50-foot sailboat mast, hit the seawall of Seddon Channel and flipped over, landing on grassy airport property about 50 feet shy of the runway, Tampa Fire Rescue Capt. Bill Wade said.

He said the plane struck the mast of the Windseeker about 10 feet down. No one aboard the boat was hurt.

Wade said that had the plane hit the seawall a foot lower, the men likely would have died.

"It was a really strange experience," said Ed Allen, who was sailing the Windseeker south in the channel to the Davis Island Yacht Club when the plane struck the sailboat. The crash caused significant damage to the mast, the sail and other equipment.

Investigators have not determined whether the plane was approaching too low for a landing or simply was low enough to strike the boat.

Allen said he often sees planes fly overhead when passing the airport, but "they're normally a couple hundred feet higher."

"The first thing I knew anything was wrong was when the rig started coming down," Allen said. "At 5 or 6 knots of boat speed, you can't do a lot of maneuvering."

Allen said it appeared the plane's nose or wheels hit the seawall. "It flipped upside-down and just slammed into the ground," he said.

Another pilot, Matthew Dean, 34, of Tampa, and his passenger, Rick Darlow, 60, of Dallas, said they lifted the plane by the wing to help the passenger escape.

Dean rents a Cessna at the airport and said he planned to give Darlow, a visiting relative, an aerial tour. They were next in line for takeoff when they saw the plane cartwheel into the ground.

"He crashed right in front of us," Dean said. "As he's landing, we look up and see smoke and debris going everywhere. We just shut everything off and ran."

Dean said the pilot crawled out and appeared to have an injured hand. The passenger's left leg was hurt.

"They're very lucky," Darlow said.

Mitch Kirby's father, Hyde, agreed.

"Talk about having Thanksgiving yesterday," he said. "We are very thankful that the injuries are not worse."

Kirby was visiting Tampa to be with his mother for Thanksgiving and celebrate his grandmother's 70th birthday, said his aunt, Sharon Fibich.

He flew down on a commercial airliner, said his father.

Kirby has a broken leg, a broken foot and some cuts, said Hyde Kirby. "He is good, alert and talking. No head injuries."

A sophomore at Princeton University, Kirby is studying molecular biology and might pursue pharmaceuticals research, his father said.

Hyde Kirby said his son expressed surprise that sailboats are allowed so close to the airport approach.

"He expressed a concern about where the airport is," Hyde Kirby said. He declined to comment on how his son knows Greenwald or how often he has flown in small planes. Kirby was issued a single-engine pilot's license in August, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.

Inside the airport, Michael Beason, a third-grade teacher from Apopka, awaited word from his brother-in-law, who had taken Beason's 12- and 10-year-old daughters up for a plane ride when the crash occurred.

Beason said he was alarmed until he found out his brother-in-law and children were OK.

"We were sitting here, and I heard there was a crash," he said. "Of course, my daughters were up there."

He said his family had landed at another airport.

The plane crash-landed a few hundred yards from where a small aircraft fatally crashed into a house in June 2006. No one was at the home this morning. A friend of the family said they were out of town.

Along the 6-foot chain-link fence, people gathered to look at the overturned experimental stunt plane.

Beth and Marcel Gutierrez live on Davis Islands and shook their heads as he peered at the wreckage with binoculars. They wouldn't mind seeing the airport go away, said Marcel Gutierrez, a former pilot who used to fly out of Peter O. Knight.

"It's grown up too much around here," he said. "Too many residences."

Beth Gutierrez said there are a lot of distractions for pilots flying into and out of the airport.

"Passing boats and ships can be a distraction," she said, noting that some cruise ships and freighters often are several stories high and pass close to one runway.

"And it's a short runway," Marcel Gutierrez said. "I just don't think it's safe anymore."

A records search shows the fixed-single-wing aircraft is registered to Tampa Aircraft Holdings Inc., 910 S. Newport Ave.

OTHER ACCIDENTS

The plane crash today was at least the fifth involving fatalities or injuries in the past decade at Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands:

March 1998: A pilot is injured when a plane hits a hangar during takeoff. The incident is blamed on pilot error.

August 2002: Two occupants are killed when a single-engine kit plane crashes into the concrete wall of a dry dock at the Port of Tampa and burst into flames shortly after takeoff.

April 2004: A plane crashes into the water while attempting to land, killing the pilot and one passenger. The wreck is blamed on mechanical failure.

June 2006: A twin-propeller aircraft slams into a Davis Islands home during an emergency landing, killing the pilot and severely injuring the co-pilot. Investigators determine mechanical troubles and pilot error caused the crash.

Source: National Transportation Safety Board; Tribune archives

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