Retired star pitcher Roy Halladay sped his small sports plane low over the Gulf of Mexico minutes before his fatal crash two weeks ago, climbing sharply in the final seconds before diving into the water, federal investigators said in a preliminary report released Monday.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Noreen Price placed no blame for the Nov. 7 accident near Tampa, simply laying out the facts as gleaned from the plane's data recorder and eyewitnesses. A final report with conclusions could take one to two years.
Price says Halladay, 40, had taken off from a lake near his Tampa-area home about 17 minutes before the crash, taking his ICON A5 to 1,900 feet (580 metres) before dropping to 600 feet (180 metres) as he neared the coastline. He then dropped to 36 feet (11 metres) when he reached the water. While flying at about 105 mph (170 kph), Halladay skimmed the water at 11 feet (3.3 metres), flying in a circle before climbing to 100 feet (30 metres), the plane's data showed.
A witness told investigators the plane climbed to between 300 and 500 feet (95 to 150 metres) when it turned and went into a 45-degree dive. It slammed into the water and flipped.
Halladay's body was found with the plane, which was severely damaged. The plane itself was equipped with a parachute, but it was not deployed.
The former Toronto Blue Jays and Philadelphia Phillies star had received the plane from ICON on Oct. 10, and was one of the first to receive the model. In one of many enthusiastic tweets about the plane, Halladay said it felt ``like flying a fighter jet.'' He had about 700 hours of flight time after getting his license in 2013, the report says. He had 51 hours in ICON A5s, including 14 in the plane that crashed.