Orange County homicide detectives are on the scene.
Eyewitnesses are reporting that a trainer was pulled into the Shamu Stadium tank and killed after 2:00pm. A guest who saw the whale show less than an hour before the fatal attack talked by phone from the park to WFTV.
“All of the sudden, out of nowhere, two of the bigger whales just kind of flipped out, going as fast as they could in the water,” guest David Dalton told Eyewitness News. “They cut off the show, like, quickly.”
There are a total of eight whales in Shamu Stadium. According to a source at SeaWorld, the whale involved in the attack is named Tilikum.
Around six months before Tilikum came to SeaWorld Orlando, the whale was involved in an incident that resulted in the trainer’s death. In 1999, a man who snuck into the park was found dead in the whale’s tank.
A caller to WFTV said at least half of the park was closed down Wednesday afternoon.
According to Wikipedia (see full listing), "Tillikum measures 22 feet 6 inches long and weighs in at 12,300 pounds (as of 2007). His pectoral fins are six and one half feet long, his massive flukes curl under, and his 6-foot-tall dorsal fin is flopped completely to his left side, and weighs close to 200 pounds. He is the largest Orca in captivity and also the most successful sire in captivity, with 13 offspring, 10 of which are still alive."
There have been several previous attacks on whale trainers at SeaWorld parks.
In Nov. 2006, trainer Kenneth Peters, 39, was bitten and held underwater several times by a 7,000-pound killer whale during a show at SeaWorld's San Diego park. He escaped with a broken foot. The 17-foot-long orca who attacked him was the dominant female of SeaWorld San Diego's seven killer whales. She had attacked Peters two other times, in 1993 and 1999.
In 2004, another whale at the company's San Antonio park tried to hit one of the trainers and attempted to bite him. he also escaped.
In December, a whale drowned a trainer at a Spanish zoo.
Copyright 2010 by WFTV.com. The Associated Press contributed to this report.