Pilot dies in plane crash near Fla. home of baseball's Saltalamacchia

JUPITER, Fla., Feb. 18 (UPI) -- A home-built aircraft crashed into a lake in Jupiter, Fla., near the home of Jarrod Saltalamacchia, killing the pilot, the big leagues baseball player said.

Saltalamacchia, a catcher for the Miami Marlins, said he returned home Monday afternoon to the subdivision known as the Aero Club, a private community with its own runway, to find the aircraft partially submerged after crashing while performing a "touch and go" maneuver.

The pilot, Leonard "Link" McGarity, a former Marine Corps helicopter pilot and American Airlines commercial pilot, was killed, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported Tuesday.