A seaplane pilot and his passenger were pulled from the East River in Queens on Saturday after the aircraft briefly got airborne, then crashed when it was hit by a wave that shattered the windshield, according to the pilot and officials.
The incident unfolded around 9:20 a.m. near Riverside Drive and 158th Street in Whitestone, close to the Throggs Neck Bridge, an FDNY spokesperson said.
Authorities said a private boater in the area came to the rescue, helping both occupants out of the plane. Neither person suffered serious injuries.
“I was taking off and I hit a big wave and the windshield cracked,” pilot Giuseppe Oppedisano told The Post, saying the aircraft then began filling with water.
Oppedisano, 67, is the owner of the well-known Il Bacco restaurant in Little Neck, Queens. He was also piloting the plane involved in an October 2020 crash that left one woman dead and three other people injured.
In that earlier crash, witnesses said the aircraft was speeding across the water before slamming into a pier, splitting the plane in two, according to officials.
A National Transportation Safety Board investigation listed poor pilot judgment as the cause of the tragedy.
Oppedisano was left in critical condition after that crash and had to undergo 10 surgeries.
He lives near the spot where his plane crashed and keeps the craft in a hangar behind his Riverside Drive mansion, official have said in the past.
