Tampa Surgeon, Nurse Practitioner Killed in Small Plane Crash Minutes After Takeoff

A single-engine turboprop crashed and caught fire in a wooded lot east of Tampa on Thursday morning, killing both people aboard just minutes after the plane left the runway at Tampa Executive Airport, authorities said.

The pilot, David Siambanes, 59, a pediatric spine surgeon well known in the Tampa Bay area, and his passenger, Dawn Stone, 53, a nurse practitioner with AdventHealth, were pronounced dead at the scene. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said deputies and firefighters were called to a report of a downed, burning aircraft near U.S. Highway 301 and Maislin Drive at 8:17 a.m., in the East Lake-Orient Park area of unincorporated Hillsborough County.

A Crash Within Sight of the Runway

The aircraft, a 2018 Lancair Evolution registered as N305PV, took off from Tampa Executive Airport's runway 5 at 8:14 a.m. and went down roughly half a mile from the field, according to flight-tracking data cited by local outlets. Investigators have not said what happened in the roughly two minutes between takeoff and the crash. The plane's intended destination was Elizabeth City Regional Airport in North Carolina.

Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crews found the wreckage fully engulfed and extinguished the blaze in under 10 minutes, a department spokesman said, crediting easy access to the crash site for the quick knockdown. Two bodies were located inside the fuselage once the fire was out.

• Crash time: 8:16-8:17 a.m. Thursday, roughly two minutes after takeoff
• Location: wooded area near U.S. 301 and Maislin Drive, about half a mile from Tampa Executive Airport
• Aircraft: 2018 Lancair Evolution, N305PV, registered to a Tampa-based limited liability company
• Both occupants — the pilot and one passenger — died at the scene

Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister said his office would keep assisting federal investigators as they work to determine what brought the plane down.

"This is a tragic loss, and our hearts go out to the loved ones of both victims. We appreciate the work of the first responders who arrived on scene quickly. We will continue working closely with our federal partners as this investigation moves forward."

A Surgeon Known for Treating Children

Siambanes practiced with BayCare Medical Group and was the founder of Scoliosis Care, directing the scoliosis program at St. Joseph's Children's Hospital in Tampa. He specialized in treating children with severe scoliosis and cerebral palsy, had served as co-chairman of the medical advisory team for the Children's Spine Foundation and president of the Spine Section of the American Osteopathic Academy of Orthopedics, and was named one of Tampa's doctors of the year for 2025 by a local magazine. He was a licensed pilot.

Bonati Spine Institute, a separate Tampa-area spine practice where Siambanes did not himself work, issued a statement Thursday evening honoring him as a colleague in the field, saying he had "helped a tremendous number of kids and families over the years" through decades of pediatric spine work. AdventHealth said Stone, who worked in bone health, had "dedicated herself to caring for others" and that her death was deeply felt by colleagues across the health system. Hillsborough County Chief Deputy Joseph Maurer called it "a tragic day for the families of the two individuals" aboard the aircraft.

FAA registration records show the aircraft was owned by a Tampa-based limited liability company tied to Siambanes rather than to a flight school or charter operator, consistent with private ownership. Neither the sheriff's office nor federal investigators have said how long he had held his pilot's certificate or how many hours he had logged in the Lancair Evolution, a kit-built aircraft that owners typically assemble themselves before it undergoes FAA airworthiness certification.

Federal Investigators Take Over

The Tampa Bay Times reported that the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have taken over the technical investigation, while the sheriff's office handles the death inquiry. The FAA said a preliminary incident report was expected to be released Friday; a fuller NTSB probable-cause finding, which the agency logs in its aviation accident database, typically takes a year or more to complete. Investigators had not disclosed weather conditions, mechanical findings or any distress calls from the cockpit as of Friday afternoon.

The Lancair Evolution is a pressurized, composite-bodied kit plane built to Federal Aviation Regulation Part 23 design standards and typically flown with a turboprop engine; owners assemble it from a kit before it is certified for flight. Earlier, unpressurized Lancair models built in the 1990s and 2000s compiled a markedly worse safety record in NTSB data, with a disproportionate share of fatal loss-of-control accidents, though the newer Evolution line has not shown that same pattern in the smaller number flying. Federal regulators note that general aviation — the category covering private, non-commercial flights — recorded its lowest fatal accident rate since tracking began in 2009 during 2024, according to the FAA's 2025 General Aviation Safety Fact Sheet, even as the category logs hundreds of fatalities most years across the more than 275,000 aircraft it covers.

What Comes Next

NTSB investigators typically spend several days documenting wreckage, examining the engine and flight instruments, and interviewing witnesses before releasing a preliminary report that lays out the sequence of events without assigning a cause. That document is expected within the next one to two weeks; a final determination of probable cause, covering factors such as mechanical failure, weight and balance, or pilot actions, will likely not come until well into 2027, consistent with the agency's typical timeline for fatal general-aviation crashes. Tampa Executive Airport, a general-aviation field about six miles east of downtown Tampa, remained open Friday, with no indication that operations had been affected. Hillsborough County's sheriff's office said no further public updates were expected until federal investigators complete their on-scene work.