Friday, December 10, 1999

By DOUG MOST
and DEBRA LYNN VIAL
Staff Writers

A twin-engine plane approaching Teterboro Airport crashed into a quiet Hasbrouck Heights neighborhood Thursday evening, killing all four people on board and igniting a series of explosions that were felt blocks away.

The fierce fire in the grass surrounded by four homes engulfed a nearby shed and a cluster of oak trees, sending a plume of flames and smoke shooting into the night sky, frightening residents of several densely populated streets and bringing firefighters from throughout the county racing to the scene.

"The house was rattling, shaking," said Cheralyn Albunia, a Napp Avenue resident. "I get out of the house. I go down the block. I see people walking, people running, flames everywhere, and big black smoke. My heart went up into my throat."

Although officials said the pilot of the six-seat Beech Baron 58 reported having no problems and was cleared for landing, sources said he was flying in the wrong direction immediately before the plane went down.

The crash was the second in two weeks involving a small plane in North Jersey.

Witnesses said they saw the plane spinning, its engine sputtering, before it hit the ground. As it emerged over the tree line, "it was like a drunk driver," said Chris Seppentino, 25, who lives near the crash site. "It was swinging back and forth. He just couldn't keep it straight."

Others reported an explosion they said sounded like two trucks colliding, followed by a white flash and flames that leapt 50 feet into the air. Some turned and ran for home as sparks crackled like fireworks overhead. Others dashed to the scene.

Two off-duty firefighters and a former Marine suffered minor injuries as they battled their way beneath burning trees and grass to the wreckage to find a man sitting spread-legged in the middle of the inferno.

"He was completely on fire," Lodi Firefighter Keith Bruining said.

"He was conscious and he was talking," Al Kopek said. "He was gurgling blood and his eyes were completely gone, but he was talking. He said he was the pilot. We asked if anybody else was in the plane. He said, 'Yes. A girl.' "

Bruining, Kopek, and Hackensack Firefighter Frank Armeli used their hands and coats to beat the flames, then dragged the man from the heat and fire while reassuring him that he would live. They returned to look for more victims, but were thrown to the ground by more explosions.

The survivor was conscious and moaning from intense pain when he arrived at Hackensack University Medical Center, but died hours later. He had suffered second- and third-degree burns over nearly his entire body, doctors said.

As of late Thursday, authorities had not released the names of the pilot and the other victims -- another man and two women.

But Roland G. Brierre of Charles City, Va., told The Richmond Times-Dispatch on Thursday night he believes his 41-year-old son, Chip, and daughter-in-law, Cary Brierre, were passengers on the plane. The couple, who had flown to New Jersey to attend a party, have an 8-year-old son who was staying with his grandparents on Thursday night. Brierre said he was not sure who the other two people on board were.

Investigators were picking through the debris late Thursday, trying to determine what went wrong.

The pilot, who had filed an instrument flight plan, had been in contact with controllers at the New York Terminal Radar Approach control facility in Westbury, on Long Island, who handed him off to Teterboro controllers for his landing, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman James Peters said.

The Beech Baron 58 was approaching Teterboro after being cleared to land on Runway 19 when it crashed at about 5:30 p.m., two miles south of the airport, Peters said.

Two sources said the pilot, just before landing, was flying in the wrong direction, away from the airport.

Peters said the pilot, whose flight originated from Hanover County Municipal Airport in Virginia, near Richmond, gave no indication of any problems.

"He was in radio and radar communication with air traffic controllers," Peters said.

The plane clipped the corner of a back porch at 18 Central Ave. before crashing into the ground, said Bob Hancock, an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, which will probe the crash and try to determine its cause.

It hit the ground next to a child's swing set, igniting a nearby shed.

Hancock said investigators were reviewing tapes of communications between the plane and control tower but would not say whether there had been any distress call.

Robert Grinch, a pilot from Ridgewood who frequently uses Teterboro, said pilots unfamiliar with the airspace in the area can become confused easily.

"At the approach altitude, coming west to east, it's not very easy to visually pick out the airport since there are a lot of lights in the area," he said.

The 1980 airplane was registered to Gregory P. Stoneman of Mechanicsville, Va. A woman who answered the phone at Stoneman's house Thursday night hung up when a reporter called.

A business acquaintance reached at home in Virginia said Stoneman's wife told her that Stoneman was not aboard the plane.

The plane crashed at a spot where four back yards meet: at 17 and 21 Washington Place and at 18 and 22 Central Ave., witnesses and neighbors said.

At least three of the homes were occupied when the plane crashed, and the occupants included a total of five children in the two homes on Washington Place.

"It turned quickly right before going down," said Dr. Mohammad Toor, who was filling his car with gasoline on Terrace Avenue when he spotted the wobbling plane. "It was going down right where I live."

Governor Whitman arrived on the scene three hours after the crash.

"Once again, we've been extremely lucky," she said. "We can't say that, obviously, for those in the plane. The fact that this plane came down in a very congested area, that it missed anybody on the ground . . . is amazing."

However, the crash renewed concerns among residents around Teterboro Airport about planes flying so low in such a congested area.

The crash follows that of a single-engine Beech Bonanza that slammed into a Newark warehouse on Nov. 26, killing three on board, injuring 25 on the ground, and sending an entire neighborhood scrambling from the flames and explosions.

Hasbrouck Heights Mayor William Torre said he and other town officials met with FAA representatives two weeks ago to request that air traffic into Teterboro be rerouted to avoid passing over his town. The borough recently sent the agency a letter to that effect, Torre said.

"We live with this every day," Torre said. "It's another reason traffic should be moved away from a residential area. There are many people who are working on that, and I know we are."

Lodi Mayor Gary Paparozzi spoke to people at the scene who had witnessed what happened and helped in the rescue, including Bruining, the Lodi firefighter.

"He looked a little shook up," Paparozzi said. "But otherwise, he seemed OK. I advised him to go to the hospital and get checked out."

Bruining's mother, Joyce Bruining, said she was in her kitchen and saw the fireball five blocks away when the plane went down.

Hours later, the sirens had been replaced by the steady clatter of news helicopters hovering overhead. Bruining's son had suffered minor injuries pulling one of the victims from the wreckage. Now, she was assured that he was OK: "Just cuts and bruises is what I heard."

"I'm just thankful that all the firefighters are OK," she said.

Staff Writers Paulo Lima, Elise Young, Adam Geller, Seamus McGraw, Alex Nussbaum, Pia Sarkar, Peter Sampson, Evonne Coutros, Don Stancavish, Richard Cowen, and Daniel Sforza contributed to this article.

Copyright © 1999 Bergen Record Corp.