12/11/99

By Bill Gannon, Matthew Futterman and Mark Mueller
STAFF WRITER

The pilot of a small plane that crashed in Hasbrouck Heights Thursday inexplicably ignored landing instructions issued by air traffic controllers, aborting a wrong-way approach to Teterboro Airport only after a last-minute warning, investigators said yesterday.

Moments later, after taking a hard turn to the northwest, the Beechcraft Baron 58TC dropped off radar, hurtling into a tree-covered neighborhood and exploding in a fireball. All four people aboard -- Virginia residents bound for a party in Manhattan -- were killed.

National Transportation Safety Board investigators yesterday were focusing on the aborted approach, saying they did not yet know why pilot Paul A. Pedersen, an experienced aviator once involved in nonfatal crash, in 1996, failed to follow orders.

''He was not where he was told to be," Robert Hancock, an NTSB air safety investigator with the agency's Parsippany-Troy Hills office, said yesterday. "He was in the wrong area -- on the opposite side of the airport. He didn't follow instructions from air traffic control, and we're still trying to figure out why."

It was not clear what role, if any, Pedersen's sharp turn away from the airport played in the crash, but the pilot sounded calm and made no mention of problems with the twin- engine plane in conversations with controllers, said Hancock, who listened to tapes of the radio transmissions.

Investigators last night were poring over the charred and twisted remains of the plane's engines and propellers to determine if they were functioning at the time of impact.

Killed instantly in the 5:32 p.m. crash were Roland T. "Chip" Brierre 3rd, 41, of Charles City, Va., his wife, Cary, 40, and Elaine Moses, 35. Pedersen, his body aflame as rescuers dragged him from where he was ejected from the wreckage, died four hours later at Hackensack University Medical Center.

Pedersen, 37, the father of a 5-year-old boy, owned Sundance Aviation, a firm that runs Virginia's Hanover County Municipal Airport and offers a courier service and tours of the Richmond area. Moses was described as a Sundance office assistant.

Authorities did not release the names of the victims, but their identities were confirmed by relatives and friends.

The 19-year-old plane, which officials said had no history of accidents or emergencies, was owned by Virginia resident Gregory P. Stoneman, who let Pedersen and the Brierres borrow it for their jaunt north.

The four took off from the Hanover County airport at 4 p.m. for a 90-minute flight that seemed routine until they approached Teterboro, Hancock said.

Traffic patterns call for pilots to approach the airport in Bergen County from the west. After flying east across the airport, pilots are directed to begin a series of left turns, first to the north, then to the west, and finally to the south to land on Runway 19.

Pedersen approached from the west as directed, but he turned north before crossing over the airport, apparently planning to approach the runway from the wrong direction with a series of right-hand turns.

Air controllers at Teterboro informed Pedersen of his mistake, Hancock said. In response, the pilot made an abrupt right turn, toward the east, followed by an abrupt turn to the northwest.

Within moments, the plane disappeared.

Joe White, the pilot of a Learjet on final approach to Teterboro at the time, was monitoring the radio during the confusion.

''I heard the tower ask another pilot behind us if it had seen the Baron and ask if it had any trouble in the turn because it had dropped out of sight," White said.

''That's when I turned my head to the right and saw the fireball on the ground to the west. I put 2 and 2 together and figured out what happened."

On the ground, residents of the middle-class neighborhood were making dinner, arriving home from work and preparing for the holidays, their homes bright with lights and decorations, when the plane rocketed out of the dark sky, its wings pitching crazily from side to side.

The Baron clipped a rear porch and slammed into the ground between two houses. The ensuing explosion shot flames 50 feet into the air, charring a cluster of towering trees and igniting a shed.

''I looked out the back and saw a wall of fire, and I just thought, 'We got to get the kids out of the house,'" said Nancy Riordan, 33, whose home backs on the crash scene. "I thought the neighbor's house blew up and that ours was going to blow up, too."

Three residents tried to save Pedersen, putting out flames on his body with coats and bare hands. The men were later treated for minor burns.

Yesterday morning, despite the damage to her yard, Riordan said she couldn't quite believe her luck.

''God was watching over us," she said. "That was our Christmas blessing. I'm not a religious person, but someone was looking out for us."

Riordan spoke as NTSB investigators continued gathering debris from the site. The remnants of the plane, a six-seater with a wingspan of 37 feet, consisted of pieces no bigger than half-dollars, a charred 6-foot section of the tail, two wheels and mangled stretches of fuselage. They were later transported to a warehouse adjacent to the airport.

Hancock said that less than 50 percent of the plane, fashioned out of fast-burning aluminum, had been recovered from the inferno.

''This is it," he said, gesturing at the wreckage behind him. "This is everything that's left."

In addition to examining the debris, Hancock said, investigators will look at the plane's maintenance records and at the pilot's history.

Records show that in October 1996, Pedersen crashed a twin-engine Cessna 310Q into a wooded field near Pasadena, Md., after running out of gas. Pedersen walked away with minor injuries, while a passenger broke his leg.

In the wake of that accident, the Federal Aviation Administration cited Pedersen for inadequate preflight planning and inadequate management of the plane's fuel supply. The agency suspended his license for 45 days.

Hancock yesterday said he was aware of the 1996 accident, but he declined to comment on it.

Investigators have all but ruled out an exhausted gas supply as the cause of Thursday's crash, given the spectacular fire that followed, he said.

''There was a very large fire, and the smell of aviation fuel was very thick, so I don't think he ran out of gas," Hancock said.

Coming just two weeks after another small plane went down in a Newark neighborhood, killing all three people aboard and injuring 25 on the ground, Thursday night's crash renewed concerns about air safety in northern New Jersey, the nation's busiest air corridor.

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) and Rep. Steve Rothman (D-9th Dist.), whose district includes Hasbrouck Heights, yesterday asked the Federal Aviation Administration to report within 60 days on the dangers posed by small planes to populous areas.

The crash also is certain to lend impetus to the complaints of residents and officials in towns surrounding Teterboro, the nation's 70th busiest airport.