A woman has died and two other people, including the pilot, have been hospitalized in critical condition when a small plane crashed onto a concrete pier in the Queens borough of New York City on Sunday afternoon, the New York Fire Department said.
The FDNY tweeted Sunday night that crews remained at the pier where the single-engine seaplane crashed around 3 p.m. local time.
FDNY said witnesses reported seeing the plane traveling “rather fast along the water, skipped twice and hit the pier.” Officials said there was no explosion or fuel hazard. FDNY said the investigation into the crash will be handed over to the Federal Aviation Administration and the New York Police Department.
Identities of the victims were not immediately released. FDNY said the pilot is a resident of Queens and he may have been trying to land. Nobody on the ground was hurt in the accident.
Photos tweeted by the FDNY show the plane wreckage across the pier:
At approximately 3pm today a single engine seaplane crashed into a pier at Riverside Drive and 158 St on the Long Island Sound in Queens. FDNY members removed three seriously injured passengers from the wreckage and transported them to local hospitals. FDNY Operations continue. pic.twitter.com/pyuDgguowX
— FDNY (@FDNY) October 4, 2020
Witnesses told CBS New York that they heard a loud boom.
“We thought it was a truck crash or something, and then my cousins … we came outside and saw the plane,” one resident told the station. “It sounded like a tractor trailer going through my room,” another person said.
FDNY said that a good Samaritan on a jet ski helped the passengers and was able to pull two people from the wreckage.