New York Plane Crash: One Dead After Queens Seaplane Accident

A woman is dead after a small plane crashed on Long Island Sound on Sunday around 3 p.m. EDT. The aviation accident seriously injured two others.

A single-engine Cessna 182 plane went down in Queens, New York City, west of the Throgs Neck Bridge near Powells Cove Boulevard and 158th Street. Witnesses told NBC New York that the seaplane was going “rather fast” along the water before it skipped twice and crashed on a concrete pier near the Beechhurst Yacht Club.

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Police say 61-year-old Maggie O'Neill died at the scene. Two others were rushed to the hospital in critical condition, including pilot Giuseppe Oppedisano, 61, the owner of Il Bacco, a Queens restaurant.

Jet skiers quickly ran to see if they could help the victims. “I just hopped the fence, I ran over, I ripped the windshield out and pulled one of the guys out,” Jarrett Schupak told NBC. He was treated for minor injuries after helping.

The good Samaritans pulled out another man, who is 66, as well before the Fire Department arrived on the scene.

Neighbors say Oppedisano has had the plane for over a decade. He kept his Cessna in a hangar behind his house, just a few blocks from the scene of the crash.

“He’s had a seaplane for 15 years,” neighbor Clare Hogan told PIX11. “He flies it often. Many times I see it. I hear it taking off. He’s experienced,” she added.

Officials are not clear on why the plane crashed on the pier, which resulted in it breaking into pieces. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

A different plane crashed at the beginning of the weekend elsewhere in New York. Lawyer Steven Barnes and his niece Elizabeth died Friday when a single-engine Socata TBM-700 crashed in Genesee County. The NTSB is also investigating.