Queens Man's Body Found 2 Months After Long Island Plane Incident

SETAUKET, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- The body of a 23-year-old college student has been found nearly two months after the plane he was in was forced to make an emergency landing on Long Island.

Police identified a body found on a beach in Setauket Harbor Monday morning as that of Gerson Salmon-Negron.

The Queens man was one of four people on board a Piper PA 28 aircraft that experienced engine trouble and was forced to make an emergency landing in the harbor on Feb. 20. The four were heading back to Long Island's Republic Airport in Farmingdale from Massachusetts at the time.

Three people were rescued from the water by police, but Salmon-Negron was not found.

The Coast Guard initially searched for him for around 18 hours, covering more than 90 square miles, before calling the search off.

A week later, family and friends combed the area around the harbor on foot, looking for clues that could lead them to the man's body.

The National Transportation Board released a preliminary report last month, revealing the plane had no fuel when it went down. According to the report, the fuel system showed the piper had no evidence of fuel and records indicated the plane had been operating for over five hours since it had last been refueled.

The report did not indicate whether the lack of fuel contributed to the cause of the crash.

The NTSB said determining the cause of the crash could take up to another year.