An extraordinary scene unfolded off the coast of South Florida over the weekend when a 23-year-old pilot facing a cascade of mechanical failures calmly landed her light aircraft in the ocean in front of stunned beachgoers.
Faith Tenkley had taken off Saturday morning in her family’s plane from Page Field in Fort Myers and was flying to the Bahamas, where she was due to pick up her parents. The emergency began when she was about 15 miles from Boca Raton. First, the aircraft’s landing gear broke. Then the right engine failed.
The 23-year-old pilot landed between the waves as beachgoers watched
Tenkley received clearance to make an emergency landing at the local airport, but she was concerned about the large amount of fuel still on board. A belly landing on a hard runway, she feared, could trigger a fire or explosion. Instead, she turned toward the Atlantic Ocean. After maneuvering past buildings along the shoreline and avoiding paddleboarders in the water, Tenkley carried out a controlled water landing several miles east of the airport.
Faith Tenkley
The plane gradually sank until only its tail remained above the water
The aircraft came down smoothly, and Tenkley was able to get herself out unharmed. About a minute later, a local lifeguard reached her, followed by a fire-rescue boat. The aircraft, a twin-engine Piper PA-30 propeller plane, gradually sank over the following hours until only its tail remained visible above the water.
Tenkley has held a pilot’s license for four years and has been flying since graduating from high school. Witnesses on shore described the landing as surreal. “I was there when it happened,” Maria Marquez told WPBF. “One moment I’m spraying sunscreen on my child, and the next I look up and think, ‘Is that supposed to happen?’”
Michael and Alexis Arizzi were also nearby on a boat with their young son Sebastian and were among the first to alert the Coast Guard. “We were the first boat to see the plane land off the beach that morning and respond,” Alexis told WPBF. “The plane made a slow descent and landed gently in the water.”