Update….

BISMARCK  (Bismarck Tribune)   –A dive team with the Morton County Sheriff’s Department worked on Wednesday to retrieve a downed plane in the Missouri River, near the Fort Rice Recreation Area.

Recovery efforts were halted Tuesday night as darkness settled in, but restarted at 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, according to Maxine Herr, a public information officer with the sheriff’s department.

The body of Daniel Matsuo Miller, 35, of Pittsburgh, Pa., was retrieved from the plane Tuesday afternoon.

Miller was a certified commercial pilot, Federal Aviation Administration records show.

Miller was flying in the area, taking low-altitude photographs when the single-engine Cessna 152 crashed into the Missouri River, according to a statement issued by the sheriff’s department. The crash was reported to 911 at 2:30 p.m.

The plane is registered to Arbach Enterprises Inc., of Watertown, S.D., according to FAA records. Filings with the South Dakota secretary of state indicate it is an aerial photography business.

A phone number for the business was disconnected.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration will investigate the cause of the crash.

The sheriff department’s dive team on Wednesday placed airbags under the plane’s wings to lift it from an underwater sandbar. The crew then dragged it to the Fort Rice boat ramp, and it was picked up out of the water by a crane and brought to the Mandan Airport.

 

Previously…

FORT RICE, N.D. (AP) — A pilot has died in a crop duster crash into the Missouri River in western North Dakota.

The Bismarck Tribune reports the plane crashed into the river near Fort Rice on Tuesday afternoon.

A spokeswoman for the Morton County Sheriff’s Department says the plane crashed shortly after 3 p.m. less than a mile north of the Fort Rice boat ramp.

The plane was partially submerged in the water. A dive team boat from the Burleigh County Sheriff’s Department dragged the plane to the Hazelton boat ramp.