BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: Well, in New York this weekend, there was a mystery solved. Eyewitnesses in Manhattan reported the sudden disappearance of a low-flying plane. Police quickly responded, and CNN's Deborah Feyerick tells us what their investigation turned up.</s>DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At 8:30 Friday morning, a single-engine plane swept over Manhattan's George Washington Bridge, gliding down in what witnesses say looked like a perfect landing on the water before disappearing in the icy Hudson River. Leigh Russo and her friend called 911. Police were on scene in 10 minutes. They found nothing -- no debris, no oil slick, no signs of a crash. Was this a hoax? With no mayday distress call from the pilot, police stopped searching. Then, a short time later the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the reports, calling the witnesses credible, their stories backed up by FAA radar records, which showed a plane at 900 feet, then at 600 feet, before flying below scanners. But where did the plane come from? Where was it going? Who was on board. And why had no one reported it missing? Police jump started their search, using side-scan-sonars, listening for a pinging sound from the aircraft. The river was quiet. Friday passed -- no body, no wreckage. Saturday too, again nothing. And then on Sunday, success. The plane was found, not on the river bottom, but in Burlington, Vermont, where the pilot, working for the U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish, and Wildlife returned after his Friday flight along the Hudson River to study ducks. The FAA says the good Samaritans did the right thing. When told the plane turned up, swore one witness, "We saw it go down." and chances are they did, in the blinding, snowy light of a winter's day. Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.
Hudson River Plane Found Safe and Sound