Tampa Bay briefs

By Times staff writers

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 21, 2000

Memorial fund established in Tampa doctor's name

TAMPA -- A memorial fund has been established by the family of Dr. Gary Haas, who died Tuesday in an automobile accident in Texas.

Haas, 47, was chief of pediatric heart surgery at Tampa Children's Hospital at St. Joseph's. The Gary Haas Heart Fund will make grants to organizations Haas supported.

For information, call (813) 282-1975.

Plane flips while landing, but pilot escapes injury

ST. PETERSBURG -- A commercial pilot who had logged 700 hours in the plane he was flying flipped the craft over its nose Sunday morning as he landed at Albert Whitted Airport, causing minor damage to the propellor, rudder, wings and struts.

The pilot, 26-year-old Mark Ertel, escaped injury.

He had flown the plane Sunday morning along the Pinellas gulf beaches, with an advertising banner trailing it. The plane, a 1946 Piper Cub J-3 owned by St. Petersburg resident Tom Merrifield, appeared in the 1985 John Candy movie Summer Rental.

Ertel said the plane's older design makes it susceptible to flipping.

The plane's wheels had touched ground when the aircraft started flipping. He said he could see the concrete as the plane flipped over on its propellor, and then, when it landed upside down, he quickly escaped from the aircraft because he feared an explosion.

"Everything was in slow motion," Ertel said. "I could see inch by inch what was happening."

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