LIVERPOOL, England (AP) -- An air ambulance flying a patient to a hospital in this northwest England port crashed into the River Mersey on Wednesday, killing five people.

The single-engine Piper Aztec, carrying an ailing man on a stretcher, his wife, two nurses and the pilot, crashed as it prepared to land then flipped over and sank into the river, Liverpool airport manager Rod Hill said.

The airport was closed for several hours while divers searched the river for bodies.

The patient, who was not immediately identified, was being flown from the Isle of Man off the west coast of England to the neurological unit at Liverpool's Walton hospital.