The Latest: Plane on tour when it crashed in Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS – The Latest on the investigation into Friday night’s crash of an airplane into Lake Pontchartrain at New Orleans (all times local):

3:15 p.m.

Authorities say a small plane that crashed in Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans had been chartered by a couple taking an aerial tour of the city.

A woman survived Friday night’s crash but two men remained unaccounted for Monday.

The plane crashed as it neared New Orleans Lakefront Airport. The airport director, Ben Morris, said Monday that the plane hit a rainstorm about the time of the crash.

The Federal Aviation Administration is looking into the cause. Morris said salvage of the wreckage was expected to begin by Tuesday morning.

First reports from the New Orleans Fire Department said the plane was on a training exercise but Morris and the Coast Guard said Monday it was on a tour.

Morris said the pilot had extensive flight experience.

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9 a.m.

The New Orleans Fire Department says crews plan to retrieve the wreckage of a small plane that crashed last week into the muddy bottom of the lake just north of New Orleans.

Capt. Edwin Holmes says that may also bring information about two men who have been missing since the crash during a training exercise Friday night.

He says retrieval was to begin early Monday about 1,000 feet west of the runway the Cessna was heading for.

Authorities said there were two men and a woman aboard, but a private boat rescued the woman. She was taken to the Ochsner (OX-ner) Health System hospital just outside New Orleans.

Lake Pontchartrain (PON-shuh-train) is a roughly triangular tidal basin covering about 630 square miles but averaging only 10 to 15 feet deep.