Saturday, December 11, 1999

By MIKE KELLY
Staff Writer

They roar. They whine. They shake the air -- indeed, sometimes the earth even seems to move. But for Stan Etelman, the noise from corporate jets and small private planes at Teterboro Airport is hardly his main worry now.

"The crash made us think," said Etelman of Thursday night's plane crash in nearby Hasbrouck Heights that killed four people. "It could happen here."

Here, for Etelman, 70, is a tiny hamlet of 100 mobile trailers in Moonachie known as the Vanguard Association that sits just across Moonachie Road from the end of one of Teterboro's runways.

How close is it?

Put it this way: When planes take off and pass over Etelman's white trailer with its brown shutters, you don't need binoculars to read the fuselage numbers. If you're lucky, you can probably catch the eye of a pilot and exchange a wave. Maybe the pilots can even read signs that warn people on the ground of a "low-flying zone."

"We're very close," says Etelman.

For years, complaints about Teterboro Airport from Etelman and others usually came down to one word -- noise.

The engine-growl of a jet taking off or landing could stop conversations on streets as far away as Ridgefield Park. Even some judges at the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack routinely would hold up trial testimony for a few seconds when a low-flying jet passed over. Hollywood thought this odd enough to document the habit when it made a television miniseries of the Baby M trial. Congressional committees, meanwhile, conducted hearings on jet noise. Local politicians held forums.

Deeper concerns were rarely voiced about the potential for plane accidents in nearby neighborhoods of homes separated by only a few feet. But Thursday's crash has prompted some local residents to concede that they have long worried about the dangers of planes smashing into their neighborhood.

The question now is whether the airport, which is run by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, will acknowledge the obvious -- that Teterboro's busy schedule, especially for private planes flown by inexperienced pilots, has made life dangerous in surrounding towns. The secondary question is even more complex: What will the airport do? Will it finally consider the possibility of banning private planes?

Even Stan Etelman acknowledges that he rarely expressed fears about a plane crash before this. But Friday morning, as he pondered the consequences of a crash in his neighborhood of trailers, he knew he didn't have to stir his imagination too much to describe what could occur.

"If it happens here," said Etelman, a security guard at the Meadowlands Racetrack, "we'd be wiped out. We haven't thought about it before. But it's a possibility. Everybody's concerned now."

As Etelman reflected on his fears, federal air safety inspectors were hard at work in nearby Hasbrouck Heights, trying to find clues to explain why a twin-engine private plane fell from an otherwise clear, storm-free sky and smashed into a back yard.

Four people -- all the passengers on the Beach Baron 58 aircraft from Richmond, Va., who were flying to Teterboro to attend a cocktail party in New York City -- died in the crash, but the toll could easily have been higher. The plane, which is almost 30 feet long and with a wingspan of 37 feet, barely missed several of the homes in just the sort of crowded neighborhood that is typical of this part of North Jersey.

Once somewhat isolated on the edge of the New Jersey Meadowlands when it was first designed more than a half-century ago, Teterboro Airport has now been hemmed in by all manner of neighbors. No matter which way planes approach the airport or take off, they must pass low over many densely populated towns.

To the west lie Hasbrouck Heights and Lodi and their crowded neighborhoods. To the north, Hackensack's high-rise apartment buildings and a major hospital. To the east, Little Ferry and portions of Carlstadt and Moonachie. To the south, warehouses and office buildings.

From his home on a hill near the Hackensack University Medical Center, the Rev. Fred Vander Meer, said he can look out his window and see low-flying planes passing at eye-level or below on their final approach to Teterboro. "The planes come across the valley," said Vander Meer, pastor of the First and Third Reformed Churches in Hackensack. "When you land at Teterboro, you basically have to come across downtown Hackensack."

But does he worry about a crash? Vander Meer says no; not even jet noise bothered him. "I was in the Navy Air Corps," he said. "Our barracks was a block from the runway. I'm used to it."

The same could be said of Adrienne McCullough, a teacher at the Rhymes and Reasons Day Care Center in Wood-Ridge. She's accustomed to the noise. Indeed, she says children have even gotten into the habit of waving to low-flying pilots from the center's outdoor playground. "We yell 'Hi, Mister Pilot,' " says McCullough.

If anything bothers her and other teachers, it's the noise from locomotives at the nearby Wood-Ridge train station.

"It's part of our life," said Manny Cimiluca, whose sports bar on Moonachie Road is closer to Teterboro's runway than the airport control tower.

"They're never going to get rid of the airport," he added, "so you may as well get used to it."

Cimiluca admits he could easily say that about noice. Getting used to a crash, however, is another thing.

Maybe this crash is the noise that will finally resonate at Teterboro Airport.

Copyright © 1999 Bergen Record Corp.