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It’s been nearly two-and-a-half years since MLB Hall of Famer Roy Halladay died when his ICON A5 amphibious plane crashed upside-down into shallow water into the Gulf of Mexico. Doc died of blunt force trauma and drowning. He was just 40.
Roy Halladay throws a no-hitter in his first career post season start against the Cincinnati #Reds, making it only the 2nd no-hitter thrown in post season history. #Phillies pic.twitter.com/TjKt26SQNB
— Baseball Content (@MLB_Contents) April 14, 2020
The National Transportation Safety Board provided more details about what lead to the tragedy, and drugs and aerial stunts reportedly proved to be Halladay’s undoing.
Halladay, who had just 14.5 hours of flight experience in the ICON A5, performed “three maneuvers with high angles of attack (AOA) and load factors of almost 2 Gs” during the final couple minutes of the flight, the document states. The maneuvers put loads of nearly two-times gravity on the plane.
MLB Hall of Famer Roy Halladay had high levels of amphetamines in his system and was doing extreme acrobatics when his plane crashed into Tampa Bay in 2017 https://t.co/18SmhdanGQ pic.twitter.com/wnHhLVA2YF
— CBS News (@CBSNews) April 16, 2020
According to toxicology tests done at the Federal Aviation Administration’s Forensic Sciences Laboratory, Halladay had a sleep aid, an amphetamine, an antidepressant, a muscle relaxer, two opioids and Ibuprofen in his system. Halladay reportedly had amphetamine levels about 10 times therapeutic levels in his blood.
Per his doctor, Halladay battled chronic back pain, depression & insomnia and went to rehab in 2013 and 2015 for opioid, benzodiazepine misuse.
The realization of how very human Roy Halladay was might be the greatest sadness of the baseball part of my life.
— Tao of Stieb (@TaoofStieb) April 15, 2020
Rest in peace to a good one.