Engine on plane that hit DeLand Publix had been in prior fatal crash

The engine that failed before a plane crashed into a DeLand grocery store last year had been involved in a fatal crash almost a decade earlier, according to a National Transportation Safety Board report.

The Seawind 3000 amphibious plane slammed into the roof of a Publix in Northgate Shopping Center on East International Speedway Boulevard on April 2, 2012, killing its pilot and injuring four others.

In an NTSB report released last week, investigators write that a 52-year-old passenger who survived the crash reported that the engine quit suddenly soon after takeoff.

“His next recollection

The plane had not been flown for about three years prior to the crash.

was rolling on the floor of a supermarket,” the report states. The passenger was injured, as were three people in the store. A witness described the plane sputtering before it crashed.

The pilot and owner of the plane, 60-year-old Kim Presbrey, a managing partner at the Presbrey & Associates law firm in Aurora, Ill., was fatally wounded in the crash, succumbing to his injuries May 26, 2012.

According to the report, Presbrey had only recently purchased the plane. It had not been flown for about three years prior, according to information gathered by the NTSB.

The NTSB report states the engine’s serial number indicated it had been involved in a previous fatal crash in Big Bear City, Calif., in March1993. It was later overhauled in October 2001.

The report says Presbrey flew the plane from Illinois to Florida the day before the crash. He’d planned to land in Sanford, but chose DeLand instead when the plane’s transponder malfunctioned.

Presbrey’s destination for the flight that crashed in DeLand was Daytona Beach, the report states.