Parts of small plane that crashed off Quogue in October pulled from water

The propeller and other parts of a small airplane that crashed off the coast of Quogue in October were pulled from the water Sunday night as part of a multi-agency effort to recover the aircraft's remains.

Investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration, the State Police, the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the Quogue Police Department collaborated in the extraction effort, which started at 8 a.m., according to a news release from Quogue Police Chief Christopher B. Isola.

Officials with the agencies were not available for comment Sunday night.

Crews used floats to lift the wreckage off the ocean floor and move it, still submerged, toward shore. A Newsday photo taken at the scene Sunday night showed the wreckage as it was brought into Ponquogue Marina in Hampton Bays. 

The undertaking came more than a month after the Oct. 13 crash, which killed the pilot, Munidat "Raj" Persaud, 41, of Waterbury, Connecticut, and the two passengers, Jennifer Landrum, 45, of Augusta, Georgia, and Richard Terbrusch, 53, of Ridgefield, Connecticut.

The plane took off that day from Danbury, Connecticut, and was heading to Charleston, South Carolina.

A preliminary report by the NTSB found that Persaud was hampered by poor visibility and an "unreliable" altitude indicator before his Piper PA-34 Seneca broke apart and crashed.