All Plane Debris Found Off Ocean City, 2nd Victim Still Missing

OCEAN CITY, MD — Authorities say all the debris from a small plane that crashed March 1 off the coast of Ocean City has been found, but a reported passenger is still missing. State and military underwater recovery teams found the body of the pilot Marcson Ngwa, 28, of Windsor Mill, late on the afternoon of the crash, but Ngwa was the only victim recovered from the scene.

Maryland State Police said Friday that investigators believe there may have been a passenger on board, Benica Mesha Richards-Robinson, 28, of Gwynn Oak. Richards-Robinson's body has not been found and has been reported as a missing person.

Ngwa and Richards-Robinson were reported missing the morning of March 1 when their Cessna 172 didn't return to Martin State Airport as expected and was not transmitting its location beacon. Ngwa's plane left Baltimore about 5:30 p.m. Feb. 28 and was last seen practicing touch-and-go landings at the Ocean City Municipal Airport that night, authorities said.

A search by the Baltimore branch of the Coast Guard, Maryland State Police and Maryland Department of Natural Resources Police looked for the victims after pieces of the aircraft were found in the water near Ocean City Inlet. While Ngwa's body was found on March 1, efforts ended about 6 p.m. that night as a winter storm moved in.

Authorities say the airplane may have crashed in the water near the north end of Assateague State Park. The tail number of the missing plane is registered to Middle River Aviation, a flight school in Baltimore, Delmarva Now reports.

On March 8, the search for Richards-Robinson resumed and continued through March 10 without finding the body. Searchers used side-scan sonar to identify areas of interest; the team searched and cleared the plane wreckage until all parts of the plane were located.

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