Two small planes collided over a lake in Florida on Tuesday afternoon, killing four people.
A local training facility for Polk State College was flying a Piper Cherokee, one of the two aircraft, with instructor Faith Irene Baker, 24, and student Zachary Jean Mace, 19, aboard.
Two people were also aboard the other aircraft, a Piper J-3 Cub seaplane. The first was Pennsylvania native Randall Elbert Crawford, age 67; however, the second’s identity has not yet been made public.
According to Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, the two aircraft collided over Lake Hartridge between Orlando and Tampa at around 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Although the accident occurred right next to Winter Haven Regional Airport, it is unclear how it occurred.
Both aircraft crashed into the water upon impact, with the other sinking 21 feet to the lake’s bottom while the seaplane was partially visible at the surface. The only occupants of the two planes were the four fatalities.
‘All of a sudden it was a giant boom,’ Caridad Fernandez, who lives along the lake, told WESH-TV. ‘It literally sounded like when a rocket takes off and hits the atmosphere.’
Fernandez said she and many of her neighbors around 40 miles southwest of Orlando ran outside.
‘We pretty much saw everything hit the water,’ she said.
‘It was just helicopter after helicopter after police siren. Everyone just kind of came in,’ she added.
Rescue personnel arrived on the scene, and a dive team was dispatched to look at the submerged aircraft. The sheriff reported that four bodies were recovered from the aircraft.
Baker worked as a pilot and flight instructor for Sunrise Aviation, which provides flight instruction to students at Polk State University and Florida State College in Lakeland and Jacksonville, respectively.
Both Mace and Mace were from Winter Haven and attended Polk State College.
