What happened to baseball player Roy Halladay?

Roy Halladay, a baseball Hall of Famer ICON A5 amphibious plane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Florida on November 7, 2017.

According to a National Transportation Safety Board report released on April 15, 2020, Roy Halladay was performing extreme acrobatics and had high levels of amphetamines in his system when he lost control of his small plane and nosedived into the Gulf of Mexico in 2017.

According to the report, Halladay had amphetamine levels about 10 times therapeutic levels in his blood, as well as a high level of morphine and an antidepressant that can impair judgement as he performed high-pitch climbs and steep turns, sometimes within 5 feet of the water.

The manoeuvres put nearly twice the gravity load on the plane, an Icon A5 – a light sport two-seat amphibious aircraft purchased by Halladay a month earlier.

According to the report, Halladay entered a steep climb on the final manoeuvre and his speed dropped to about 85 mph. The propeller-driven plane nosedived and crashed into the water.

According to the report, Halladay, 40, died as a result of blunt-force trauma and drowning.