Texas Pilot Pleads Guilty to Insurance Fraud in Gulf of Mexico Crash

A Texas pilot who survived a 2012 Gulf of Mexico plane crash and used an iPad to record his time in the water acknowledges it was insurance-related fraud.

Theodore Robert Wright III pleaded guilty on Dec. 7 in Tyler to conspiring to commit wire fraud and conspiring to commit arson. He faces up to 40 years in federal prison.

Prosecutors say Wright and three others — who’ve also pleaded guilty — bought planes, boats and cars, over-insured them and destroyed the vehicles to collect cash.

Wright in October 2012 appeared on NBC’s “Today” show to describe a crash a month earlier on a flight from Baytown, Texas, to Sarasota, Florida. The plane crashed off Louisiana.

Wright, who’s a native of Port Kent, New York, used his iPad to record the ordeal before rescued.