Tour Helicopter Down in Tampa Bay - R-44?

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PHXPhlyer
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Tour Helicopter Down in Tampa Bay - R-44?

#1 Post by PHXPhlyer » Fri Dec 30, 2022 7:21 pm

Man recounts escape from helicopter water landing near Tampa’s Peter O. Knight Airport
Among the bystanders who helped rescue the family was Tampa Bay Buccaneers backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert.


https://www.tampabay.com/news/tampa/202 ... s-islands/

Barely 90 minutes after he said he lost hope of making it out of the water, Hunter Hupp, 28, walked out of the Peter O. Knight Airport terminal wrapped in a white sheet. He said it still hadn’t hit him that he had survived after being trapped in a helicopter submerged beneath the water.

Hupp, his 62-year-old father, 59-year-old mother and the pilot, a 33-year-old man, were finishing a helicopter tour when they had to make an emergency landing about 200 yards from Davis Islands just after 5 p.m. Thursday, Hupp said. All four survived with no injuries.

They were planning to land at the airport when Hupp said he heard a popping sound in the rotor above his head. Tampa Police Department Lt. Daniel College said the helicopter had an engine failure. Hupp said the helicopter wasn’t going to make it back to the airport.

“I am pretty astonished that I am standing here to talk to you,” Hupp said in an interview at the airport.

In this image captured by Spectrum Bay News 9's Sky 9 helicopter, first responder boats float near the area where a helicopter crashed into Tampa Bay near Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands on Thursday.

Hupp arrived in Tampa from his home in Philadelphia on Saturday. The helicopter tour — flying out over Tampa and to the beaches before returning to the Davis Islands airport — was a Christmas gift. He said he’d never been in a helicopter, and his parents hadn’t, either — his dad is afraid of heights.

After their experience Thursday, Hupp said, they aren’t planning on getting into a helicopter again.

As the helicopter hit the water and began to sink, Hupp said he was caught under seatbelts and cords. He said he struggled to get out as his parents and the pilot escaped and made their way to the surface.

“I would have liked to be the third out,” Hupp joked.

Hupp said he began to give up, but he thought of his parents floating above him. He said he thought of what they would go through if he drowned, so he made one more attempt to get out of the helicopter.

Finally, he freed himself. Hupp estimates he was underneath the water for between 45 seconds and a minute.

Among the bystanders who helped rescue the family from the water was Tampa Bay Buccaneers backup quarterback Blaine Gabbert, who was on a personal watercraft at the time.

RELATED: ‘Citizen hero’ Blaine Gabbert recounts his role in Davis Islands helicopter rescue
The Tampa Police Department said in a news release it “is currently coordinating with local and federal agencies regarding the investigation and eventual recovery of the helicopter.”
Hupp said he had dinner reservations with his parents Thursday night. After they got back to shore, he said, those plans were canceled.

Instead, Hupp said, he was going to get takeout sushi and drink “all the bourbon.”

‘Citizen hero’ Blaine Gabbert recounts his role in Davis Islands helicopter rescue
“I was just right place, right time I guess,” the 33-year-old Bucs backup quarterback says.

https://www.tampabay.com/sports/bucs/20 ... er-rescue/

TAMPA — A Bucs season rife with subpar moments produced its most surreal and ironic one Friday afternoon.

Standing before a bank of cameras inside a plush studio, the quarterback who hasn’t taken a meaningful snap in nearly a year found himself recounting how fate forced him into the most critical hurry-up drill of his life.

Blaine Gabbert, a portrait of anonymity the last three seasons as Tom Brady’s backup, suddenly was commanding the national stage and being dubbed a “citizen hero.”

“I just thought I was doing the right thing at the right time,” Gabbert told reporters.

Roughly 20 hours earlier, Gabbert, 33, and his two younger brothers were jet skiing off Davis Islands, checking out the sailboats at the nearby yacht club, when he gazed westward and spotted what “almost looked like a crew boat in the water that had broken up in about four pieces.”


“And I vaguely seeing like, two yellow life jackets,” Gabbert said. “So I was like, ‘All right, we’ve got to go check this out.’ It looked like they were in duress.”

What the brothers discovered was a submerged helicopter — being used Thursday for a sightseeing tour — that had contained four passengers.

All of them — 28-year-old Hunter Hupp, his parents and the 33-year-old pilot — had evacuated the craft by the time the Gabberts (occupying two jet skis) arrived.

“I got two on my jet ski, my brothers got one,” Gabbert said. “The pilot was still in the water, and that’s when (authorities) pulled up. And I dragged (the pilot) a little bit towards the boat and and he got on. Luckily enough, we were probably 250 meters from the beach, so we got him to the beach.”

All four passengers were uninjured, though Hupp indicated he remained trapped in the submerged helicopter the longest. The effort prompted Maj. David Arthur of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office to deem Gabbert a “citizen hero.” Coach Todd Bowles lauded the player’s selflessness.

“Any time you can find a guy to drop everything and go help somebody else that he doesn’t even know without even thinking about it, and take their life into their own hands and helping somebody else save their lives, that says a lot about the guy,” Bowles said. “And Blaine did that.”


Gabbert, naturally, downplayed his role in the rescue.

Not a chance. Any hope of obscurity would have to wait until Sunday.

PP

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Re: Tour Helicopter Down in Tampa Bay - R-44?

#2 Post by TheGreenAnger » Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:57 pm

31a1c71b-helicopter-crash-tampa-police.jpg
R44.
My necessaries are embark'd: farewell. Adieu! I have too grieved a heart to take a tedious leave.

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