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Teterboro jet crashes
Federal investigators were preparing late Wednesday to examine the voice and data recorders from a charred jet that hurtled off a runway at Teterboro Airport, skidded across a highway and slammed into a warehouse during the morning rush, injuring 20 people, 11 of them on the plane. Route 46 was reopened about 10:45 p.m., despite earlier warnings that the highway would be closed for days. Takeoffs and landings resumed about 6:45 p.m., nearly 12 hours after the Challenger CL-600, bound for Midway Airport in Chicago, skidded into the brick warehouse.
Five people remained hospitalized, one of them gravely injured. James Dinnall, a 66-year-old Paterson man who was riding in a car that was struck by the jet, suffered head injuries and was on life-support equipment at Hackensack University Medical Center, authorities said. It was mere coincidence - the early hour, a red traffic signal - that thwarted a full-scale disaster. The accident occurred at 7:20 a.m. A moment later, and the intersection would have been swarming with commuter traffic. Forty-five minutes later, and classes would have been in session at a nearby high school. An hour, and the warehouse would have been filled with 200 workers. As the jet slid across Route 46, a line of 20 to 30 westbound vehicles was stopped by a red light at Huyler Street. "If that light had been green, who knows how many cars might have been in the path of the plane - including mine," said Jeffrey Gross of Little Ferry, whose car was at the head of the line. "Thank God that light was red. Honestly, I think I would have been in it. You're talking a three-second drive from the light." At the warehouse, occupied by a clothing distributor called Strawberry, company officials said all its employees were accounted for. "An hour later, everybody would have been there," said plant manager Tommy Ficarra of West Paterson. Officials said the cause of the crash would not be known for months. Investigators were examining a trail of destruction that included 1,000 feet of skid marks, a flattened fence, a path across six lanes of Route 46, two twisted cars on the highway and others in a parking lot, a massive gouge in the warehouse wall and a mangled and burned aircraft. "It appears that the aircraft was involved in a takeoff, and that was aborted," said Debbie Hersman, a spokeswoman for the National Transportation Safety Board. NTSB officials declined to speculate on whether ice had formed on the wings in the 22-degree cold. Such icing has contributed to crashes of other CL-600s and similar models, manufactured by Bombardier of Canada. Investigators interviewed two linemen with Atlantic Aviation, who each said no frost was visible on the plane. One pilot, who had parked alongside the jet that crashed, told investigators there was no ice on his aircraft. No de-icing requests were made Wednesday morning for any planes at the airport, NTSB officials said. Live video footage - of the burning plane, the traffic backups on Route 46 and interviews with witnesses and investigators - was broadcast on the major networks and cable news programs well into the night. Also at Hackensack University Medical Center late Wednesday were the co-pilot, who underwent surgery for leg injuries, and the pilot and a passenger, who suffered unspecified injuries. At Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, 35-year-old Rohan Foster of Paterson - the driver of a Toyota that was destroyed - was being treated for a broken nose and undergoing further tests. The rest of the victims - including seven passengers, five firefighters and two bystanders - were discharged from the hospitals. They suffered from cuts, bruises and inhaled jet-fuel fumes, officials said. In all, the plane carried 11 people: the pilots, a flight attendant and eight passengers. Five of those passengers were employees of Kelso & Co., a private-equity investment firm with offices at 320 Park Ave. in Manhattan, and three were business associates, company officials said. The registered owner of the plane was 448 Alliance LLC of Dallas, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration. The aircraft was listed among the inventory operated by Darby Aviation of Sheffield, Ala., and it also was operated by Platinum Jet of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he said. The pilot was identified as John Kimberling, 58, and the co-pilot as Carlos Winston Salaverria, both of Florida. Kelso officials declined to name anyone aboard, but some employees and their families, reached at home, said none of the injuries was serious. A woman who answered the phone at the home of a Kelso partner, David I. Wahrhaftig, said he had been on the flight. "He's doing fine," she said. "Everyone who was on the plane is OK," said Kelso employee Irvin K. Culpepper Jr. of Stamford, Conn. He was not on the flight. NTSB officials said the voice recorder was recovered - free of burns and other damage - at 3 p.m. and sent to Washington, D.C., where it would be analyzed. "Hopefully there will be data, and it will give us some information about what happened," Hersman said. The flight-data recorder was found several hours later, and it, too, was taken to Washington. By 5 p.m. investigators were studying the aircraft - its front third still wedged into the warehouse occupied by a clothing distributor, where it came to rest. Among them were employees of the NTSB and FAA, Bombardier, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada and Honeywell, which built the jet's twin engines. The investigators were working with care. The aircraft "still has a significant amount of fuel in it," Hersman said, adding that the warehouse had to be shored up. The drama began about 7:20 a.m. The jet was hurtling northeast on Runway 6, a 6,000-foot stretch of tarmac. But the plane didn't appear to leave the ground, witnesses said, and it skidded for 1,000 feet, crossed a patch of grass, flattened a security fence and sliced into the eastbound lanes of Route 46. It continued across the highway, striking two cars, sliding across a parking lot, destroying two cars and crashing into the warehouse occupied by Strawberry, a clothing distributor. "It sounded like a Dumpster," said Strawberry benefits administrator Carmen Torres. The plane crashed into the "sign shop," where displays are fabricated for the company's stores. Dave Daniel, vice president of distribution, was in an office about 40 feet from where the plane came to a rest. "The whole building felt like it was shaking for like four or five seconds," Daniel said. "I ran outside the office and I saw a plane in flames." Outside, several motorists and Port Authority employees sprinted to Foster's crushed Toyota Camry and to the burning wreckage. They described dazed passengers running from the plane and the stench of jet fuel. "It had hit two cars on 46," said Leonard Spano, an employee of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the airport. "It took the roof off of one car, and I got the driver out. He was injured, but not fatally." Spano ran to the highway, then to the jet. "The plane was about a third of the way into the building," he said. "I saw the pilot and the co-pilot get out - the co-pilot had a broken leg. I saw eight people, all men, and they all got out." The pilot was the last to "stumble out," Spano said. A sea of rescue vehicles soon flooded a stretch of Route 46 between Industrial Avenue and Huyler. Surrounded by a whitish smoke, dozens of firefighters from numerous departments worked to contain the fire. "As I was approaching the scene, I saw the plume of dark smoke, so I knew we had a problem," said Assistant Hasbrouck Heights Fire Chief Angelo Roccamo. Rescue crews sent from Newark by the Port Authority used a special hose nozzle to punch through the skin of the aircraft and spray fire-suppressing foam. The passengers and crew were taken to a triage center in the gymnasium of Bergen Technical High School, adjacent to the warehouse. Shortly after 10 a.m., a man dressed in what appeared to be pilot's uniform emerged from the gym and walked into an ambulance. Once at the hospitals, many of the passengers underwent decontamination for jet-fuel exposure. They were directed to heated tents, where they were showered and given hospital gowns to wear. Around noon, investigators from the NTSB could be seen unloading gear inside a hangar. Rescue workers had begun to "preserve the scene," said Port Authority Executive Director Ken Ringler. "Many questions will be unanswered today," he remarked. Staff Writers Scott Fallon,
Andrew Glazer, Brian Kladko, Yung Kim, Amy Klein, Alex Nussbaum, Carolyn Salazar, Daniel
Sforza and Lindy Washburn contributed to this article. By WAYNE PARRY, The Associated
Press, 2/2/2005, 12:54 p.m. ET Eleven people were on the plane; the most seriously injured was the pilot, who suffered a broken leg, said officials, who did not disclose the identities of the passengers or crew. "I think everybody at this point is extremely lucky and fortunate," said acting Gov. Richard J. Codey. One witness said a pilot crawled out of the wreckage and told him the crew lost control of the plane. It was headed for Midway Airport in Chicago when the accident happened around 7:20 a.m., said Greg Martin, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Washington. A National Transportation Safety Board team was dispatched to the site. Authorities initially said there were 14 people on the plane but later said there were 11. They gave no information on what company or group had chartered the jet. One witness said the plane never made it off the ground after "sliding and skidding" down the runway. "Usually we see them lift off, but this one just went straight and started scratching the ground. There were sparks shooting out all over the place," said Joseph Massaro, a psychologist who lives nearby. Christopher Trucillo, chief of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, said rescue crews were unsure whether the inside of the plane was on fire when they arrived, and they used a special hose nozzle to punch through the skin of the aircraft and spray fire-suppressing foam inside. Video from television station helicopters showed wheel tracks, plainly visible in snow, that ran straight off the end of the runway, through a fence and a snow bank and then across six-lane U.S. 46. Witness Robert Sosa told WNBC-TV he saw the plane crash into the building. "The pilot said he dragged himself out," Sosa said. "He literally crawled out like a baby, and all the other people just walked out normal." "He said as they tried to airborne ... they just lost control," Sosa said. Martin said communication between the air traffic control and the aircraft was routine. The weather was clear and wind was calm, with temperatures in the low 20s. Martin identified the aircraft as a twin-engine Canadair Challenger 600, "a type of small regional business/charter jet" that can carry 12 to 15 passengers. A similar plane, a Canadair CL-601 Challenger, crashed in December in Colorado while trying to take off, killing a son of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and two others. After that crash, the NTSB warned pilots of smaller planes to run their hands along their aircraft's wings before takeoff to make sure ice hadn't formed. The registered owner is 448 Alliance LLC of Dallas, and is listed among the inventory of aircraft operated by Darby Aviation, of Sheffield, Ala., FAA spokesman Jim Peters said. The jet is also operated by Platinum Jet of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., he said. "That's perfectly legal," Peters said. A message seeking comment at Darby Aviation was not immediately returned, while a person at Platinum Jet said no one was available to speak. At the warehouse, owned by clothing company Strawberry, employee Luis Ruiz said only a few workers were inside when the plane hit. One was injured, he said. Dr. Joseph Feldman of Hackensack University Medical Center said 12 people, including the pilot and copilot, were taken there and three were admitted, one — a person who had been in a car — in critical condition. Most of them needed to be showered to remove jet fuel, Feldman said. Two people, a flight attendant and a man who had been in a car, were taken to Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck, said spokeswoman Katherine Kakogiannis. The flight attendant had minor injuries; she didn't know the condition of the other person. The airport, 12 miles from midtown Manhattan, was closed after the crash. Teterboro has grown into one of the nation's busiest small airports, catering to corporate jets. It had 202,720 arrivals and departures in 2004, a 4 percent increase from 2003, officials said. ### Source: www.nj.com Jet Goes Down At Teterboro (New York -WABC, February 2, 2005 ) — A jet plane missed the runway at Teterboro Airport and crashed into
a warehouse across from Route 46 on Wednesday morning. Eyewitness News is told that 11
people were hurt in the crash and two are missing. One witness said the pilot crawled out of the wreckage and said the crew lost control of the plane. Witness Robert Sosa said he saw the plane crash into the building. "Two guys came off with their hand cuts," Sosa said. "The pilot said he dragged himself out. He literally crawled out like a baby, and all the other people just walked out normal. He said as they tried to airborne before five minutes past (7 a.m.), they just lost control and they couldn't airborne the plane. They went straight through, 100 miles per hour," Sosa said. At least one car could be seen in pieces on the road and flames could be seen inside the aircraft. The accident set at least one building on fire, and is said to have caused several accidents. Route 46 is shut down. Heavy traffic is expected to build on several routes, including 17 and 80. The building that was struck has been described as a clothing warehouse, and that there were no injuries there. Other witnesses described a chaotic scene. "Usually we see them lift off, but this one just went straight and started scratching the ground. There were sparks shooting out all over the place," said Joseph Massaro, a psychologist who lives nearby. "It was so scary. Everything was flying apart. There was a big hole in the building and I heard screaming and yelling," Massaro said. Just before 10:00 a.m. a state police spokesperson said everyone on board the plane had been accounted for. The plane is said to have been registered in Dallas, Texas to a company called 448 Alliance, LLC - a property tax consulting firm. Eyewitness News is told it was en route from New York to Chicago's Midway Airport. Teterboro Airport is one of the busiest small airports in the country, with over 200,000 flights each year. FAA officials say their preliminary investigation is focusing on icing on the wings as a possible cause. The plane is an older model of the same type of plane that crashed in Aspen with Dick Ebersol on board. NTSB put out a notice to pilots a month or so ago warning about the potential for icing problems. Experts said communication between the air traffic control and the aircraft was routine
before this all happened, and that the aircraft had been cleared for takeoff. The National
Transportation Safety Board has a go-team en route to investigate the crash. ####
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