Friday, December 10, 1999

By JOSH GOHLKE and MITCHEL MADDUX

Herald & News

HASBROUCK HEIGHTS - A small commuter aircraft plunged into a residential neighborhood just two miles short of Teterboro Airport Thursday, killing all four on board and injuring at least three on the ground who attempted to rescue the plane's occupants from flames consuming the wreck before it exploded a second time.

Authorities said the crash killed four people - two men and two women - in the six-seat Beechcraft Baron 58, based in Virginia. A man who escaped died afterward at Hackensack Unviversity Medical Center. The aircraft crashed at 5:32 p.m., striking two trees and a garage before exploding shortly afterward on Washington Place. The plane crashed and burned at a point where four Hasbrouck Heights back yards adjoin, one of them Marge Jengo's of Central Avenue.

"The propeller was in my yard and I heard someone yelling, 'Help me. Please, help me,'" Jengo said.

Jengo said a man was sitting in her backyard, cross-legged, completely engulfed in flames. She said thatshe ran into her house for something to smother the flames.

"As we were getting to him with the blankets, the fuselage blew and we couldn't get to him, and then the fire department got there," Jengo recalled. "It's heart-wrenching, because you're trying to do the best you can."

The Lodi Fire Department was first on the scene and extinguished the flames quickly with minimal damage on the ground, officials said. The plane, they noted, was "incinerated."

Three men, one rescued from the plane, were treated for burns at Hackensack University Medical Center.

Authorities did not release the identities of the four victims who perished aboard the plane late last night.

The crash victim who escapedappeared to be middle-aged but could not be identified, doctors said. While he was conscious on arrival to the hospital, his chances of survival appeared slim, doctors said.

"He's in very critical condition," Dr. Hans Schmidt, an emergency room trauma surgeon, said of the man who later died.

"It's very touch-and-go if he survives over the next week or two. He has second and third degree burns over almost 100 percent of his body. We're doing everything we can right now."

Also treated were two men who dragged the victim from the wreckage: Frank Armeli, an off-duty Hackensack firefighter who happened to be nearby, and Albert Kopec, a neighborhood resident.

Kopec and Armeli were rushing toward the aircraft when it detonated, throwing them backwards. Both suffered burns, and in addition, Kopec suffered a concussion.

Keith Bruining, an off-duty Lodi firefighter, also reportedly suffered burns while attempting a rescue.

The aircraft, a Beechcraft Baron 58, departed from Hanover County Airport, a general aviation airfield in Virginia, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The plane was cleared to land on Runway 19 at Teterboro by controllers working out of the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control facility in Westbury, Long Island, in accordance with standard procedures used with visual flight rules, Peters said.

In clear weather under such guidelines, the aircraft's pilot guides his aircraft visually for a landing, without reliance on instruments after informing the control tower of his intent to touch down.

The plane was registered to Gregory P. Stoneman of Mechanicsville, Va.

Stoneman said that he told two different people that they could use the plane on Thursday. That night, he was frantically trying to contact both of them to discover who was flying the aircraft.

He said the airplane - it was built in 1980, according to FAA records -was in perfect condition. "Even the air conditioner worked," he said.

Hasbrouck Heights Councilman Justin Di Pisa said eyewitnesses told him that as the plane came down, it was careening out of control and that the pilot was trying to raise the nose to level flight. It struck two trees and a detached garage, which caught fire.

"There's nothing left," he said. "There's no fuselage. There's no wing. You can't even tell it's a plane."

Kevin O'Hara of Raytheon Corp. of Wichita, Kan., the plane's manufacturer, said the current model of the Beechcraft Baron 58 has two piston-driven engines.

It has a maximum cruising speed of 232 mph at an altitude of 20,688 feet. Its wingspan is 37 feet, 10 inches, while its length is 29 feet, 10 inches.

Fully fueled, it can carry 931 pounds of passengers and cargo, and fly 1,340 nautical miles with 45 minutes of fuel in reserve, the company said.

The crash occurred 13 days after a single-engine plane crashed into a Newark neighborhood on a rainy morning, killing all three aboard, a family from Bethesda, Md., and injuring 25 on the ground.

It brought terror to a neighborhood well aware of its position in Teterboro's path. Mike Aragon of Woodside Avenue had bloodstains on his hands and clothing from trying to pull passengers out of the burning debris.

"We went in the backyard and saw the pilot on fire," Aragon said. "I tried to get him out but it was too hot.... Then while we were trying to get people out, the plane exploded again, and the blast threw me against the fence."

Marie Zakarian of Central Avenue was taking out the trash when she looked up to see the plane plummeting toward her neighborhood.

"It was just twirling," Zakarian said.

At a press conference Thursday evening, Gov. Christine Todd Whitman said she was concerned about high air traffic congestion in New Jersey skies.

"Obviously, this area, like much of New Jersey, is in a flight path," she said.

Teterboro - with 251,000 takeoffs and landings a year, primarily small business craft - is one of the state's busiest airports.

Mohammad Toor of Hillcrest Avenue in Lodi, who works at St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center in Paterson said he believes he witnessed the events that may have caused the plane to crash

"I was at a gas station at Harris and Williams getting gas. I saw 4 or 6 planes in the sky. One plane was heading south and the other was coming towards him from the east. I saw the guy try to avoid hitting the plane by going down then up. Then I lost sight of the plane and I thought that something could have happened to it," he said.

Hasbrouck Heights Mayor William J. Torre said he would draft a letter to the FAA to express his concerns about air traffic at Teterboro Airport.

Craig Messery of La Salle Avenue said he had thought about the worst.

"I came home yesterday and I saw a low plane flying overhead," he said. "Right next to it in was another plane coming in the opposite direction. I told my wife then that we're going to have a big problem one of these days."

Staff Writers Ernie Garcia, Brendan January, Hilary Burke and Pamela Langan contributed to this report.

Copyright © 1999 Gremac, Inc.