Men Walk Away From Fiery Small Plane Crash In NJ

VICTOR EPSTEIN

TETERBORO, N.J. (AP) — Two men walked away from a fiery small-plane crash Friday morning and were found by emergency responders at a bus stop minutes later — alert and conscious but badly burned. The mishap occurred after the pilot of the twin-engine Beechcraft Baron aborted a landing at Teterboro Airport and crashed into a tree and sign just after 3 a.m.

Teterboro is the same airport where a 2005 jet crash injured 20 people and where, earlier this month, a controller and supervisor were suspended for their conduct during a deadly midair collision over the Hudson River.

In Friday's crash, the airplane was about halfway down a runway when the pilot, George Maddox, aborted the landing, then tried to climb and come around for another try, said Robert J. Gretz, a senior investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. The pilot never radioed a distress call and it's not clear why he aborted the landing, Gretz said.

The plane cleared a set of power lines and traffic lights along a highway that borders the airport before hitting a tree on the other side of the roadway, breaking in half and hitting a large sign, Gretz said. The cockpit and engines wound up in a grassy field near a warehouse. The plane was sitting upright when it caught fire, and the two men inside managed to crawl out.