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Pleasure soon lost on Cessna flight over bay
By MIKE BRASSFIELD
ST. PETERSBURG -- Two St. Petersburg retirees were able to swim to safety Wednesday after their rented Cessna crash-landed in Tampa Bay. The two friends, who took off on a pleasure flight from Albert Whitted Airport, were enjoying the view over the middle of the bay when the engine started acting up. "Very rough," said pilot Jack Haberman, 80. "Then it quit entirely." Oil sprayed over the plane's windshield as the two men steered toward land. They considered landing on Bahia Beach, a strip of sand on the Tampa Bay shoreline in southern Hillsborough County. One problem. "There were too many people on the beach," Haberman said. "We were gliding in, and I could have put it down there, but I might have hurt somebody." Haberman and co-pilot Carl Schrader, 64, landed in the water about 100 yards from shore. A boater went out to the scene and found the two men clinging to the tail of the submerged plane. They were unhurt, except for a few cuts to Haberman's hands and forehead. "We did the best kind of landing you can do on the water," said Haberman, a retired banker who has flown small planes for about 20 years. The Cessna 152 evidently blew a hydraulic line before it crashed about 8:30 a.m., said Hillsborough County Fire Rescue spokesman Ray Yeakley. By Wednesday afternoon, the plane had been towed to shore. Federal officials plan to house it in a hangar as the National Transportation Safety Board conducts a routine investigation of the crash. "The pilots reported that about 10 minutes after they departed, the engine started running rough. Then the engine failed," said NTSB investigator John Lovell. The Cessna is owned by Bay Air Flying Service, which rents small aircraft to private pilots at Albert Whitted. Company officials would not comment Wednesday. Haberman and Schrader, who fly regularly, had planned to take the Cessna to Brooksville to visit a friend. Haberman would fly up there and Schrader would fly back. The most difficult part was finding a place to land, Schrader said. The pilots could make out volleyball nets on Bahia Beach. "We couldn't see too well because of the oil on the windshield," Schrader said. "It made looking for a place to land a little more difficult." Both pilots said the episode was unusual because airplane engines are normally reliable. "Go easy on the airport. It wasn't the airport's fault," Haberman said. "It could have happened to anybody." -- Staff writer Amy Herdy contributed to this report.
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