Setauket, NY - February 21st, 2016 - Suffolk County Police rescued three men and are continuing to search for a fourth after a small plane was forced to make an emergency landing in Setauket Harbor last night.
Four men were traveling in a Piper Archer four-seat fixed wing aircraft when the plane began experiencing engine trouble. A student pilot, Austricio Ramirez, was flying at the time the plane began experiencing difficulties and turned the controls over to the instructor pilot, Nelson Gomez.
Gomez landed the plane in Setauket Harbor at approximately 11:05 p.m. and all four occupants were able to exit the plane into the water. Three men, Ramirez, Gomez, and Wady Perez, were rescued by Suffolk County Police officers. A fourth man, Gerson Salmon-Negron, 23, of Queens, remains missing.
Ramirez, 25, from the Bronx, Gomez, 36, from Queens, and Perez, 25, from Queens, were all transported to Stony Brook University Hospital where they were treated and released.
Officers from the Sixth Precinct, officers, including divers, from the Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau, Suffolk County Police Aviation officers, multiple volunteer fire departments, including divers, the Brookhaven Town Harbormaster and members of the United States Coast Guard responded to the incident location.
The search for the missing man was continuing on Sunday.
The men had left Fitchburg, Massachusetts and were returning to Republic Airport in Farmingdale at the time of the incident.
