William Gordon, 56, died on Friday after crashing a P-47 near North Bergen, New Jersey
The plane, named Jacky’s Revenge, went down during a promotional flight for the American Airpower Museum
It was taken to a heliport in lower Manhattan Saturday, where investigators from the FAA will examine it
Gordon was a skilled pilot used to perform in air shows and gave certifications to perform low-level aerobatics
The aircraft was scheduled to perform at the Jones Beach Airshow this weekend for Fleet Week
A WWII plane was fished out of the Hudson River and hoisted onto a barge Saturday, one day after the crash that killed its 56-year-old pilot.
William Gordon, a father of two from Key West, Florida, was taking part in a promotional flight for the American Airpower Museum when witnesses saw the plane, a single-seat P-47, spewing smoke before it went down.
Scuba divers recovered his body around 10.30pm on Friday, about three hours after the crash.
Police divers and Army Corps Of Engineers personnel retrieved the plane the next morning. It was taken to a heliport in lower Manhattan, where investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board will examine it to determine what caused the plane to fail.
Police divers and Army Corps Of Engineers personnel fished out the P-47 from the Hudson River on Saturday morning.
The plane was hoisted onto a barge (pictured) and taken to a heliport in lower Manhattan, where investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will examine it to determine what caused the crash
Witnesses saw the plane spewing smoke before it went down into the Hudson River. Scuba divers retrieved William Gordon’s body about three hours later
Gordon was taking part in a promotional flight for the American Airpower Museum when he crashed. The plane was scheduled to perform at the Jones Beach Airshow this weekend for Fleet Week
William Gordon was trying to crash land the plane, which was experiencing mechanical issues, when the tragedy struck
The pilot had attempted to get out of the aircraft before it became completely submerged in the river
William Gordon, 56, was killed after his aircraft, the WWII vintage P-47 Thunderbolt plane he is pictured with here, crashed into the Hudson River on Friday
Gordon’s body was recovered from the aircraft around 10.30pm, three hours after the plane went down
Witnesses could actually see Gordon struggle as he tried to get out of the plane before it became completely submerged in the water
Gordon, originally from upstate Copake, in Columbia County, was a veteran air show pilot with more than 25 years of experience, according to promotional material for an air show last month.
He sometimes certified other pilots to perform low-level aerobatics and had been the Chief Pilot at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in Red Hook in recent years.
‘If anyone could have landed that on the water short of Chesley Sullenberger, I’m here to tell you it’s him. I rode with him for years,’ his stepbrother Fred Schneeberger, 57, told the
‘You ask anybody who worked with him, he was an airplane mechanic, certified, helicopter-rated, jet-rated, instrument-rated. This wasn’t your backwoods woodpecker.’
Gordon had a son, a daughter and three grandchildren.
The American Airpower Museum had organized Friday’s promotional flight to mark the 75th anniversary of the P-47, which it will celebrate this weekend.
Scott Clyman, the museum’s flight operations pilot, called Gordon ‘an extraordinary pilot’ ‘who understood the powerful message our aircraft represent in telling the story of American courage and valor’.
The FAA will determine the reason for the in-flight failure but we know this much; Bill was a nationally respected pilot and we were lucky to call him one of our own,’ Clyman said in a statement.
A witness to the crash, Hunter College student Siqi Li, saw smoke spewing from the plane and thought it was doing a trick.
‘It made kind of a U-turn, and then there was a stream of smoke coming from it,’ Li told the ‘It was tilting down toward the water. I thought they were doing some sort of trick. I didn’t realize it at first, but it was a plane crash.’
The FAA said the aircraft, which went down near the George Washington Bridge around 7.30 pm, was among three planes that had departed from Republic Airport in Farmingdale, on Long Island, just east of New York City.
The other two aircraft returned to the airport and landed safely.
Museum spokesman Gary Lewi said the plane was kept at the museum and was taking part in an air show at nearby Jones Beach this weekend.
‘We are saddened by the news that the WWII P-47 Thunderbolt aircraft crashed over the Hudson last night. The pilot was a friend to us all and we send our deepest sympathy to his family and our friends at the American Air Power Museum. The Bethpage Air Show will continue as planned, but with heavy hearts,’ a statement on the air show’s website read.
The P47-Thunderbolts were the heaviest single-engine fighter planes used by Allied forces in World War II. They first went into service in 1942, with the 56th Fighter Group based on Long Island.
