Setauket Harbor plane crash missing person search continues

Suffolk police continued to search Setauket Harbor Sunday for the body of a 23-year-old Queens man missing since the plane he was riding in crashed earlier this month.

Two Marine Bureau boats were out from morning until nightfall using sonar to look for Gerson Salmon-Negron, of Elmhurst, a police spokeswoman said. Police will assess weather conditions, available resources and other calls for service Monday morning before resuming the search, police said, as they have other mornings.

Salmon-Negron was aboard a single-engine, four-seat Piper Archer plane returning to Republic Airport in East Farmingdale from a trip to Massachusetts when it crashed into the cold waters just after 11 p.m. Feb. 20.

Three others — student pilot Austrico Ramirez, 25, of the Bronx, flight instructor Nelson Gomez, 36, of Queens, and Wady Perez, 25, of Queens, a friend of Salmon-Negron’s, —were rescued from the wreck by Suffolk County police Marine Bureau officers.

On Saturday morning, dozens of family members including his Salmon-Negron’s mother Ivette Salmon, friends and fraternity brothers from New York City, New Jersey and Connecticut converged to search the land around Setauket Harbor. They found no trace of him. Friends planned to return to the area next weekend to resume the search, but asked police to continue to look for his body.

By David M. Schwartz

dschwar1@newsday.comschwartznewsNY

David Schwartz covers environmental issues. A native Long Islander, he's worked at Newsday since 2013.