Jimmy Buffett and his 1994 Plane Crash
HOW JIMMY BUFFETT SURVIVED HIS 1994 PLANE CRASH
It was the summer of 1994 and Jimmy Buffett, the singer-songwriter, author, businessman, and avid airplane pilot, was leaving Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he’d been vacationing. Buffett was an experienced pilot when he took off alone on August 25, 1994, from Madaket Harbor on the island’s west side in his Grumman G-44 Widgeon seaplane, per Buffett World and Florida Today. Buffett was taxiing the nine-passenger twin-engine plane when he hit a sudden swell. “Just prior to lifting off the water, out of the corner of my left eye, I spotted some contrary water what looked to be to me some kind of swell, and decided to pull the power, but before I could do so, the plane veered extremely to the right,” Buffett reported to the National Transportation Safety Board (via Aviation Accidents).
“He had just taken off from the water when the plane suddenly nose-dived into the water and capsized,” a Nantucket police officer recalled in The News and Observer. As the seaplane began to sink, Buffett’s Navy aviation survival training kicked in — he leaped into the water and began swimming away from the plane. He was picked up by a passing boat and brought to shore, where the police met him and took him to the hospital to get checked out.
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Story credit: Grunge; By: Andrew Amelinckx (Sept. 2, 2023)