Crash kills two on plane that flew from Hanscom
Only crew aboard at N.J. site
A private jet that had landed at a Massachusetts airport just hours earlier crashed near a small airport in New Jersey yesterday, killing two crew members and sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air.
There were no passengers aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down, hitting a building around 3:30 p.m. yesterday about a quartermile from the runway at Teterboro Airport, just west of New York City.
A police officer at Carlstadt Police Department said no one on the ground was reported to have been injured. The officer said authorities are not yet releasing the names of those killed.
Emergency responders reached the scene shortly after the crash and worked for more than an hour to extinguish the blaze.
The plane hit a building in an industrial area, near a township facility, said Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the town of Carlstadt.
He said pieces of melted engine could be seen in the charred wreckage, along with wheels and part of the fuselage. A Carlstadt police spokesman said the jet appeared to be listing to its side before it crashed. The cause of the crash is under investigation.
According to a flighttracking website, the plane flew from Teterboro early yesterday morning and made a two-hour stop in Bedford at Hanscom Airfield between 8 and 10 a.m. before it safely flew to Philadelphia. From there the plane, with only crew aboard, made its final run to Teterboro around 3 p.m. There was no immediate information on any passengers who might have flown from Bedford to Philadelphia. The FAA said in a statement that investigators were en route to the scene and the cause of the crash was unknown.
Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn. He was aboard another plane at the airport at the time.
The National Weather Service warned of strong winds with gusts up to 45 mph just before the plane went down.
Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area. The busy site is the scene of dozens of takeoffs and landings each day and is a favorite landing spot for corporate and other luxury jets.
The airport was the scene of a midair crash that killed nine people in 2009, when a single-engine plane and a sightseeing helicopter collided over the Hudson River. Twenty people were injured there in 2005 when a corporate jet aborted its takeoff and crashed into a nearby warehouse.