De Land Municipal Airport - Incidents

Incidents

On Monday, April 2, 2012, in the evening, an amphibious Sea Wind 3000 plane encountered problems (one individual who made a 911 call said that the engine began sputtering and then the plane made a nose dive) shortly after taking off from DeLand Municipal Airport (roughly 40 miles north of Orlando, Florida)- less than two miles later, it crashed into a shopping center, a Publix supermarket. According to Luke Schiada, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), three customers were hurt, and two people aboard the plane were hospitalized in Orlando; all of the injuries resulted from burns. He said the plane is made of composite material and was amateur built in 2002; the plane seats four people, but only two people from Illinois were aboard. DeLand Police spokesman Lt. Jack Waples identified the men as Kim Presbrey and Thomas Rhoades. Fire consumed most of the plane, which plunged through the roof and landed between two aisles in the middle of the store. The plane didn't have a black box but investigators may be able to use the plane's GPS system to learn more about what happened, Schiada said.