A young female pilot stunned onlookers by deliberately crash-landing her twin-engine plane in the sea just off a busy Florida beach — and then emerging seemingly unscathed.
Faith Tenkley, 23, skillfully dodged buildings and visitors to land the small aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean close to Boca Raton on Saturday after her landing gear broke, forcing her to take emergency action, she told Gulf Coast Now.
Tenkley had been alone flying her family’s plane from Fort Myers to pick up her parents in the Bahamas when she started having mechanical issues about 15 miles off Boca, she said.
The experienced young pilot initially planned to make an emergency landing at Boca, but upon realizing her landing gear wasn’t working, she worried that a hard landing on the runway in a recently refueled plane could spark a fire.
With the right engine on the twin-engine plane not working, she decided to bring the plane down in the water.
Wow! A small plane flew right past me while I was running, and I recorded it making an emergency landing in the ocean near South Beach Park in Boca Raton, Florida. I ran down the beach and caught up to it, saw the passenger safely on shore and watched the plane begin sinking… pic.twitter.com/8fNst7sxYE
— SCHD STAN | Craig (@SCHDETF) August 22, 2026
Dramatic video shared on X shows Tenkley dodging both buildings and paddleboarders before finding an empty spot next to the beach.
A lifeguard got to the plane within a minute, with a fire rescue boat from Boca Raton Ocean Rescue close behind.
No injuries were reported, but Tenkley was taken to a local hospital as a precaution, Boca Raton police said.
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