At least one person has died after a plane carrying six people crashed in New York State. The twin engined aircraft came down in a dmuddy field about 50 miles south of the state capital Albany on Saturday (April 12).
The US Federal Aviation Administration said the Mitsubishi MU-2B was headed to Columbia County Airport near Hudson, but crashed near Copake.
Columbia County Sheriff's Office responded to a call at about midday US time (5pm GMT), according to Undersheriff Jacqueline Salvatore.
Ms Salvatore, speaking at a press conference near the scene of the crash, said: "It's in the middle of a field and it's pretty muddy, so accesibility is difficult."
The US National Transportation Safety Board said it had sent an investigation team which was expected to arrive on Saturday night.
The United States has seen a flurry of deaths in air crashes since the beginning of the year.
A New York City sightseeing helicopter broke apart and plummeted into the Hudson River near New Jersey's shoreline, killing the pilot and a family of five from Spain, on Thursday (April 10).
Witnesses described seeing the helicopter’s tail and main rotor breaking away and smoke pouring from the spinning chopper before it slammed into the water.
It had taken off from a heliport and was flying north over Manhattan's skyline before heading south toward the Statue of Liberty. Less than 18 minutes into the flight, parts of the aircraft were seen tumbling into the water.
Rescue boats circled the submerged aircraft within minutes of it hitting the water. Recovery crews hoisted the mangled helicopter out of the water using a floating crane. The bodies were recovered from the river.
The victims included passengers Agustin Escobar, 49, his wife, Mercè Camprubí Montal, 39, and their three children, Victor, four, Mercedes, eight, and Agustin, 10. Mercedes would have celebrated her ninth birthday on Friday, according to officials.
Mr Escobar, an executive at Siemens, was in the New York area on business and his family had flown in to meet him for a few days. Photos on the helicopter company’s website show the couple and their children smiling just before taking off.
Joan Camprubí Montal, Ms Montal’s brother, said there were "no words to describe" what the family was experiencing in a statement posted on social media on Friday night.
The pilot has been named as Seankese Johnson, 36, a US Navy veteran who received his commercial pilot’s license in 2023.
Meanwhile, three people were killed and one injured when a small plane crashed on Friday in Florida near a major road, pushing a car onto a railway line.
Boca Raton Fire Rescue's Assistant Chief Michael LaSalle said the crash triggered a fireball when it hit the ground, injuring a person in a nearby car. Mr LaSalle said several roads near Boca Raton Airport remained closed near Interstate 95.
The Federal Aviation Administration identified the plane as a Cessna 310 with three people on board. It went down after leaving Boca Raton Airport bound for Tallahassee, according to the FAA.
Federal officials have tried to reassure people that flying is the safest mode of transport, which statistics support. But aircraft collisions and near-misses have been gaining more attention in the US.
A midiair collision killed 67 people near Washington in January. An airliner clipped another in February while taxiing at Seattle airport. In March, an American Airlines plane caught fire after landing in Denver, putting 12 people in hospital.
The wing tip of a plane heading to Charleston, South Carolina, struck a jet en route to New York City on Thursday, prompting another FAA investigation. The plane to New York wasn't moving at the time.
It happened on a taxiway at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. About 80 people were on the Charleston bound plane and 71 on the plane to New York.
