Key West Harbour - Key West

On March 18, 1994 at 11:43 AM, Key West Harbour - Key West experienced a crash involving Grumman G-73 Mallard, operated by Chalk's Ocean Airways, with the event recorded near Key West Florida.

The flight was categorized as positioning and the reported phase was takeoff (climb) at a lake, sea, ocean, river crash site.

2 people were known to be on board, 2 fatalities were recorded, 0 survivors were identified or estimated. This corresponds to an estimated fatality rate of 100.0%.

Crew on board: 2, crew fatalities: 2, passengers on board: 0, passenger fatalities: 0, other fatalities: 0.

The listed crash cause is human factor. The flightcrew had completed a 14 cfr part 135 charter flight and had landed in the harbor at Key West, Florida. They had moored the seaplane and departed. About an hour later, they reboarded the seaplane to fly it to an airport for refueling, then to return to the harbor to board the passengers. During takeoff, the seaplane was observed to pitch nose up, roll left, and crash nose down in the harbor. Due to the damage done by tidal flow and recovery attempts, the exact condition of the aft bilge drain plugs was unknown. During a check of the CVR recording, the crew was not heard to call out the bilge pumps during the before-takeoff checklist. After lift-off, both pilots made comments about keeping the nose down due to water in the aft portion of the aircraft. Both pilots were killed.

Aircraft reference details include registration N150FB, MSN J-51, year of manufacture 1950.

Geospatial coordinates for this crash are approximately 24.5548°, -81.8021°.