Man Recounts Escape From Helicopter Water Landing Near Tampa’s Peter O. Knight Airport

Barely 90 minutes after saying he’d lost hope of making it out of the water, 28-year-old Hunter Hupp exited the terminal at Peter O. Knight Airport, wrapped in a white sheet. He said he still hasn’t realized he survived after being trapped in a submerged helicopter.

Hupp, his 62-year-old father, his 59-year-old mother and the pilot, a 33-year-old man, were finishing a helicopter tour when they made an emergency landing about 200 meters from Davis Islands shortly after 5 Thursday afternoon, Hupp said. All four survived without injury.

They were about to land at the airport when Hupp said he heard a popping noise in the rotor above his head. Lt. Tampa Police Department Daniel College said the helicopter had an engine failure. Hupp said the helicopter would not make it back to the airport.

“I’m quite amazed that I’m standing here to speak to you,” Hupp said in an interview at the airport.

In this image taken by Spectrum Bay News 9’s Sky 9 helicopter, first responder boats hover near the area where a helicopter crashed near Peter O. Knight Airport on the Davis Islands in Tampa Bay on Thursday is. [ Spectrum Bay News 9 ]

Hupp arrived in Tampa from his home in Philadelphia on Saturday. The helicopter tour – which flies over Tampa and to the beaches before returning to the Davis Islands airport – was a Christmas present. He said he had never been in a helicopter, neither had his parents – his father is afraid of heights.

After their experience on Thursday, Hupp said, they have no plans to board a helicopter again.

As the helicopter hit the water and began to descend, Hupp said he was pinned under seat belts and cords. He said he struggled to get out when his parents and the pilot escaped and made their way to the surface.

“I would have liked to have finished third,” joked Hupp.

Hupp said he was starting to give up, but he thought about his parents hovering over him. He said he was thinking about what they would go through if he drowned, so he made another attempt to get out of the helicopter.

Finally he freed himself. Hupp estimates he was underwater for between 45 seconds and a minute.

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

The Tampa Police Department said in a news release that it is “currently coordinating with local and state authorities to investigate and possibly recover the helicopter.”

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Hupp said he made dinner reservations with his parents on Thursday night. After they returned to shore, he said those plans were canceled.

Instead, Hupp said, he would get sushi to go and drink “all the bourbon.”

Times contributor Rick Stroud contributed to this report.