Angel Flight crash: 2 dead in upstate New York (UPDATES)

Two passengers are dead and the pilot is still missing following the crash of a plane operated by Angel Flight, a nonprofit group that arranges free air transportation for sick patients, in upstate New York.

The two bodies were found near the crash site west of Albany on Friday night, Fulton County Sheriff Thomas Lorey told The Associated Press.

Most of the plane was submerged in a pond.

Authorities were searching the pond and surrounding woods for the pilot, who was still missing Sunday.

The twin-engine plane had departed from Hanscom Field in Bedford, Mass., and was headed to Rome, NY, before it crashed just after 5 p.m. on Friday, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The passengers, whose names have not been released, were a former Marine who was a cancer patient and his wife, an Albany attorney who is a volunteer pilot for Angel Flight told the AP.

Volunteer pilot Terence Kindlon said that he had flown the two to Boston, where the man was being treated for glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, on Friday morning.

"We were both former Marines and had been in Vietnam pretty close together in time," Kindlon said. "We hit it right off. He was a nice guy."

"We all offer our thoughts and prayers to the families of those affected," Larry Camerlin, president and founder of Angel Flight Northeast, said in a statement. "Our volunteer pilots are the most compassionate and generous individuals who donate their time, aircraft and fuel to transport patients and loved ones for free to essential medical care that would otherwise not be readily available to them. There are no words that can adequately express our sorrow."