Roy Halladay Reportedly Was Doing Aerial Stunts On Drugs Before Fatal 2017 Plane Crash

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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.

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.

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.

Rest in peace to a good one.

Matt Keohan Avatar
Matt’s love of writing was born during a sixth grade assembly when it was announced that his essay titled “Why Drugs Are Bad” had taken first prize in D.A.R.E.’s grade-wide contest. The anti-drug people gave him a $50 savings bond for his brave contribution to crime-fighting, and upon the bond’s maturity 10 years later, he used it to buy his very first bag of marijuana.