7 Plane Crashes in 7 Days Ends at the Bottom of Lake Michigan

If you survive one plane crash in your lifetime, you're considered pretty lucky. When you survive 7 in one week, I'm not traveling with you.

Licensed pilot Dennis Collier was the proud new owner of an amphibious airplane called a Seawind 3000. He went to California to check out the beautiful aircraft that had not been flown for years. In fact, the aircraft only had a total of 20 hours of flying time in its lifetime.

Record-eagle.com did an amazing job of breaking down, please excuse the pun, each of the 7 plan crashes that took place with this new plane in 4 states over the span of only 7 days. Here's a very brief summary:

Crash #1

The first of the seven crashes happened while attempting to land after a test flight in California. The landing gear was still up. That banged up the plane pretty good, but nobody was injured.

Crash #2

The engine stalled causing the plane to come down hard beside a runway in New Mexico taking out a sign and runway lights. Again, no injuries reported.

Crash #3

We know for sure that this crash also took place at the same airport in New Mexico as crash #2. However, it's unclear exactly what happened.

Crash #4

After leaving New Mexico and being in the air for a couple hours, more problems arose. The left wing hinged tab was stuck and the plane was pitching up. It took all of the pilot's strength to control the aircraft and 4 attempts to land. That landing in Nebraska was a very rough one.

Crash #5

After repairs Collier performed a test flight that ended in yet another crash in Nebraska.

Crash #6

The record-eagle lays out the terrifying crash #6,

The hydraulic pressure gauge was registering zero, Collier said, and the fuel gauge showed an uneven supply. He radioed the airport to ask whether there was a spotter on the ground who could look up as he passed and let him know if the landing gear was down — no response.

The nose hit during landing and the plane skid down the runway in Manistique, Michigan.

Crash #7

This week long nightmare ended on the 4th of July in Lake Michigan. Since this Seawind 3000 had so many recent issues with the landing gear deploying, the pilot promised the FAA that he would keep the landing gear down for his 25 minute flight. He did not know when he made that promise that he would be doing an emergency water landing due to the wing flaps not responding. The landing gear caused the plane to go vertically into the water nose first. Somehow he remained uninjured once again. However, the plane that should be able to float is now at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

I encourage you to check out the full details of each crash by clicking here. In the meantime, here's everything you ever needed to know about the Seawind 3000.