NEW ORLEANS (AP) – A small plane that crashed in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans had been chartered by a couple taking an aerial tour of the city when it hit a rainstorm and went down, an airport director said Monday.
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A woman survived Friday night’s crash but two men, the pilot and another passenger, remained unaccounted for.
The plane crashed as it neared New Orleans Lakefront Airport. “Which she was holding hands with her boyfriend and slipped up then she surfaced”, Ben Morris, Director of Aviation at Lakefront Airport said.
A Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew and a 29-foot Response Boat-Small crew from Coast Guard Station New Orleans have been doing search patterns in the area since the initial report of the crash. The wreckage of the plane, a Cessna, was located Sunday morning by the New Orleans Police Department; it is expected to be removed and salvaged on Tuesday.
The agency has not yet sent an investigator to the scene but has begun “gathering information”, according to Terry Williams, the safety board’s spokesman.
The family of one of the victims of the crash identified him as Reginald Hilliard, Jr. 25. The woman was taken to Ochsner Hospital soon afterward. First responders said they had seen her walk from a rescue boat to an ambulance Saturday night.
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Preston said the Coast Guard had no time frame for potentially being called off the search effort for the two missing men. The recovery operation has been slowed by “very murky” conditions on the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain, Morris said. “Nearly brought it out tonight, but ended up not”.
