Heart-stopping footage shows American baseball legend Roy Halladay practising nail-biting flying stunts days before he was killed in a plane crash.

The sports star is seen swooping dangerously close to the ocean before suddenly jerking into steep climb just the craft is set to plunge into the water.

It is feared dad-of-two Halladay, 40, was attempting similar tricks when his two-seater "sports" plane - a $389,000 ICON A5 - crashed into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday.

Bill Smith, 47, filmed the footage on the afternoon of October 20 while at the beach with his wife, just a few hundred yards from the crash site.

Heart-stopping footage shows American baseball legend Roy Halladay practising nail-biting flying stunts days before he was killed in a plane crash. The sports star is seen swooping dangerously close to the ocean before suddenly jerking into steep climb just the craft is set to plunge into the water. It's feared dad-of-two Halladay, 40, was attempting similar tricks when his two-seater 'sports' plane - a $389,000 ICON A5 - crashed into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. Bill Smith, 47, filmed the footage on the afternoon of October 20 while at the beach with his wife, just a few hundred yards from the crash site.