Fort Pierce Florida, one person received minor injuries and two others were unharmed after a Albatross crashed on takeoff at the St. Lucie County Intl Airport on Thursday.
About 3:35 p.m. N120FB Albatross blew its left engine just after takeoff, it was reported as just clearing the airport fence and crashed on Talylor Dairy Road.
The aircraft was en route to Okeechobee. The plane had 300 of fuel on board, approx 150 gallons leaked out of the starboard wing, and 150 gallons were removed into drums from port wing.
Same here and I even met the old reprobate on several occasions. First time I saw one of the amphibs struggling ashore on the ramp at Cat Cay during a fishing trip in the early 60’s I was hooked and that’s what I was going to fly when I grew up.
Flew them many, many times over the years afterwards, here’s the old terminal on Bimini:
Likewise…growing up in Miami, they were a great sight to see to an impressionable kid. My dad would always make it a point to park over by thier base on Watson Island, by the Port of Miami coming back from the beach, and watch them do thier water t/o s. But I didnt know they had Albatrosses? I only remember the Mallards in thier fleet?
Edit: And looking back at the pic…thats definitely NOT a Mallard…but an HU-16. I know this becuase I lived near OPF, and the CG based thier HU-16s thier in the 60s and 70s. What a shame not too many of these babys left.
Had a very good friend that flew the -16 for Uncle Sam’s Confused Group. He had some hilarious tales of SARS in the old birds, as well as some very sobering ones.
I’ve never heard that before…we always called them “shallow water sailors”. I like yours MUCH better!
He probably has some good pics of those times too I’ll bet besides stories. I’ve always said I was born 20 years too late. Those were the days I read about with some these type of birds.
I’ve never heard that before…we always called them “shallow water sailors”. I like yours MUCH better! 
