New York, Aug 11 (DPA) Divers have found the wreckage of the fixed-wing aircraft and a body inside it in the Hudson River by New York City, where the plane had collided with a sightseeing helicopter Saturday.
One body still remained missing, and there were no survivors. The helicopter wreckage was located soon after the accident.
Five of the nine victims were Italian tourists, including a man and his 16-year-old son, taking a long-planned sightseeing helicopter tour around Manhattan.
The father, Michele Norelli, 51, was also celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary with his wife, Silvia Rigamonti, who stayed on land as the chopper took off because of her fear of flying, The New York Times reported.
Divers had stopped their search earlier Monday because of strong currents, but returned to find the wreckage of the single-engine Piper was in about 20 metres of water, according to New York police spokesman Paul Browne, Newsday reported online.
They were not able to remove the body, CNN reported.
The collision has triggered a debate about the safety of small aircraft traffic in the New York City air corridor. About 225 helicopters, small planes and amphibious craft fly with no air traffic control in the area on any one day, according to Debbie Hersman of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
“The accident occurred in very complex airspace over New York City,” the chief NTSB investigator told reporters.
Hersman explained that planes flying under a 1,000-feet altitude (300 metres) were allowed to fly visually, without instruments or radio instructions, a decades-old rule that tried to accommodate the heavy sightseeing and flying demands for the Hudson River corridor.
She said the NTSB had made dozens of recommendations over the past decades for collision avoidance steps and systems in such busy corridors. It was not clear from her comments whether any of them were heeded.
Hersman also said that collision warning systems similar to those on commercial aircraft are not practical for helicopters because they operate in such close proximity to buildings and would receive constant warning signals that would be a “nuisance”.
The collision brought calls from federal and state legislators for the FAA to change the rules and insist on guidance from air traffic control towers for air traffic around New York City.
