Footage of the moment former MLB pitcher Roy Halladay's ICON A5 amphibious airplane went down in the Gulf of Mexico was released to the public via TMZ on Wednesday, November 8. In the video, Halladay's private aircraft drastically shifts up and down in elevation as the party responsible for recording him in flight expresses shock over what he is watching. Towards the video's end, the witnesses speed over and show themselves coming upon debris from the accident, in what unfolds to be a surreal development for those on hand.
Halladay "was flying like that all week. Aggressively," TMZ cites one eyewitness as saying. Reports tell of his plane repeatedly ascending as high as 100 feet in the sky, and then descending to glide as low as 5 feet above the waves. It is arguable as to whether such a pattern is unnatural, considering the ICON A5 is actually built for pilots who seek a thrill to maneuver in the fashion observed by onlookers. But it has since been reported that the manufacturer sent out new low-altitude guidelines that may have prevented Halladay from taking such risks three weeks ago.
"Holy f**king s**t dude... holy f**king s**t. Oh my god bro. Oh my god," the witness who filmed the visual could be heard saying over and over, before arriving at the scene of the accident. When he gets there, it becomes clear that he has no clue that one of the great pitchers of his generation had just died at the age of 40. "He's gotta be in there bro. Oh my god what was he thinking? He or she?" he says, as another onlooker notices what he took to be Halladay's shirt.
