Faith Tenkley, 23, survived a water landing off Boca Raton on Saturday after her plane developed mechanical issues and a landing gear malfunction. Police said she was the only person aboard the single-engine aircraft, and no one was injured.
The plane came down near 250 South Ocean Blvd. at about 9:40 a.m. local time after Tenkley began experiencing trouble about 15 miles west of Boca Raton. A lifeguard reached her within about a minute, and Boca Raton Ocean Rescue and a fire boat followed.
Faith Tenkley near 250 South Ocean Blvd.
Tenkley had been a pilot for four years before Saturday and had left Page Field in Fort Myers for Bimini in the Bahamas to pick up her parents. She was flying a family twin-engine Piper and initially planned to divert to Boca Raton Airport.
As the plane’s problems escalated, the landing gear malfunctioned. Tenkley feared a hard runway landing could ignite the recently refueled aircraft, so she put the plane down in the ocean instead of pressing for a runway approach.
Boca Raton Ocean Rescue response
Video showed Tenkley swimming away after the water landing, while the plane’s tail stuck out of the ocean. She later was taken to a hospital as a precaution after the rescue on Saturday.
A separate water rescue report shows how quickly a small crew can be brought to safety when a response arrives within seconds, and this case moved just as fast once the lifeguard got to Tenkley.
Peter Busch said Tenkley wanted to clear up misinformation online about the rescue. In a post, he wrote: “One of the reasons Faith wanted to talk to me was to clear up misinformation she saw online about the pilot being a guy and a 'surfer girl' rescuing him” and “Faith was wearing a long skirt over a bikini. She took off the skirt to swim to shore. People on the beach saw a woman in a bikini and assumed she was a surfer helping the male pilot.”
The landing was smooth, but it came only after a mechanical problem and a gear failure forced a choice between an ocean ditching and a potentially harder runway attempt. What the plane’s mechanical issues started as, and what happens to the aircraft after the water landing, remain the open points that matter most now.
