Three Indian-Americans, including an 11-year-old boy, were killed when a small family-owned plane carrying them nosedived into the Mohawk river here during an afternoon leisure trip.

Albany-based hotelier George Kolath, who hails from Kerala, was entertaining his son and a doctor friend when the Piper Cherokee went down shortly after taking off from the nearby Mohawk Valley Airport on Sunday, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters.

The body of the boy, George Kolath Jr, and that of the doctor were found, said Kolath’s brother-in-law Anil Paulose. However, the body of 42-year-old Kolath, who owns several hotels as well as a $40-million “castle” in Albany, was yet to be recovered, local media reports said.

“He stopped for lunch at a small airport and they took off and (after) their takeoff, we don’t know what happened,” Paulose said. “It (the plane) fell into the water”.

Witness Skip Ryan, a pilot who was also waiting to take off, said the plane appeared to lose power in the air, plunging nose-first into the river. The aircraft, which was registered to Kolath Airlines LLC of Bear, Delaware, went some 30 feet into the water.

A skydiving instructor at Mohawk Valley Airport said he and others who were in the small airstrip’s restaurant heard the crash, ran down the airstrip and jumped into the river.