WINTER HAVEN, Fla. — NTSB crash investigators are releasing new details on what may have led up to Tuesday's collision between two planes over Lake Hartridge in Winter Haven.


What You Need To Know


Divers pulled the mangled wreckage of the Piper PA-28 from the lake early Thursday.

The Piper J-3 Cub Seaplane was recovered on Wednesday. NTSB officials say footage given to them is shedding new light on what may have happened. 

“In layman’s terms, I would suggest that the Piper Cherokee was making a left descending turn," said NTSB air safety inspector Lynn Spencer, “and came nose to nose with the Cub, which attempted an evasive maneuver.”

Investigators say the Polk State College instructor, Faith Baker, 24, and her student, Zachary Mace, 19, were practicing what’s called a “go around maneuver," gliding the plane without power to a landing at the Winter Haven Airport.

“A go around maneuver is a maneuver that you make when you come in for a landing,” Spencer said, “but then add power and rather than landing, you climb again and go around, to come back and try the maneuver again.”

Meanwhile, investigators said Louis Defazio, 78, and Randall Crawford, 67, on board the Piper J-3 Cub Seaplane were preparing to land on the lake when the planes collided head on and plunged into Hartridge Lake.

“From preliminary information and a review of these videos,” Spencer said, “it appears that the J-3 Cub attempted to dive to the right immediately before the collision.”

Although investigators said these are all very preliminary details, there’s a belief that this crash was the result of a simple misunderstanding.

“The Cherokee was self announcing its location and its intention and the Cub was not," Spencer said. “This might indicate that the Cherokee was unaware of the Cub and if the Cub could not hear what the Cherokee was announcing, they may have been unaware of the Cherokee.”