Seaplane hoisted from river after crash which killed five Britons

The seaplane which crashed killing five Britons in Australia on New Year's Eve has been hoisted from the river where it sank.

Police divers and a barge equipped with a small crane arrived at the scene early on Thursday morning local time to begin lifting the wreckage out of the water, about 25 miles north of Sydney.

The remains - which also include the aircraft's landing floats - will now be examined, and investigators hope to also find personal phones or other electronic devices which may help piece together what happened.

Among those who died in Sunday's crash, which happened shortly after takeoff, was 58-year-old Richard Cousins - the chief executive of British catering firm Compass Group Plc - and four members of his family.

Those were his sons Edward and William Cousins, 23 and 25, fiance Emma Bowden, 48, and her daughter Heather Bowden, 11.

When lifted out of the water the plane had lost its wings and the propeller, cockpit and front section of the fuselage had been crumpled.

Nat Nagy, executive director of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, said the accident investigation team would examine the circumstances in which the same DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver Canada plane crashed in 1996.

After the plane's previous fatal crash was revealed at the weekend, Mr Nagy on Thursday said: "There were a number of factors involved in that incident and that will be something we look at."

He said it was routine to look at the history of an individual aircraft and the history of the plane's type.

The plane was previously a crop duster which clipped a wing on a hillside northwest of Sydney and cartwheeled, killing the pilot, air crash investigation records showed.

The records say the plane likely stalled during windy conditions and a spokesman for Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority said it was later repaired and re-registered for service.

Sydney Seaplanes, which operated last weekend's flight, has so far declined to comment on the crash, but its director Aaron Shaw has told reporters the engines on its planes were regularly replaced, and the motor on the crashed aircraft had only flown for around 200 hours.

The business has operated without mishap since 2005.

Australian pilot Gareth Morgan, 44, was also killed in the crash on Sunday.

England cricket fans paid tribute to those who died before their final match-up with their Australian counterparts in "The Bashes" - a five-match series taking place alongside the Ashes.The Barmy Army wore black armbands and held a minute's silence before the game, which co-founder Paul Burnham said was "the right thing to do".

"It was a horrible accident, and we felt it deserved our recognition that an Englishman here following the cricket had died in these circumstances," he added.

Mr Cousins had planned to attend the fifth Ashes test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, which got under way on Thursday.