Planes Collide in N.J.; 4 Killed, 8 Injured

CLIFFSIDE PARK, N.J. —  A single-engine private aircraft and a business jet collided over New Jersey opposite Manhattan Sunday evening, scattering wreckage over several towns and setting six buildings ablaze. Four people were presumed dead, and authorities feared the death toll might rise dramatically.

Two bodies--apparently from the single-engine plane, a Piper Cherokee--were found in a street in the adjoining community of Fairview.

The two pilots of the jet, a three-engine, French-built Falcon-50, owned by Nabisco Brands Inc., were presumed dead, although their bodies had not been found at the crash site here, State Police Sgt. Tom Dombroski said.

8 Treated at Hospitals

At least eight people injured on the ground were treated at hospitals after the accident, authorities said.

Capt. Tom Pierson of the nearby Fort Lee Police Department said that he expected to find at least 20 bodies in the rubble of the buildings that burned when the jet slammed into a street of small, mostly residential buildings here.

“As far as victims go, there is no one alive in any of those buildings,” said Pierson, who estimated that the buildings housed as many as 90 families.

Pierson said that it was not known how many people were in the apartments when the jet, which is capable of carrying 12 passengers, crashed into them.

Melvin Greyson, a Nabisco spokesman, said that he did not know if anyone, other than the two pilots, was on the jet, which was en route to Teterboro from Morristown.

Firefighters were trying to determine how many people were aboard the jet and how many may have been trapped in their homes when the jet struck the buildings, igniting them.

Children Flee

The plane crashed into two, two-story homes on a street of small brick and frame buildings. Children were playing in the front yard of one of the houses. But when they heard an explosion--apparently from the midair collision--they fled down the street. Other children, who had been playing on the street, scattered as airplane parts rained onto the structures and jet fuel ignited.

Josephine Esposito, the owner of one of the houses, managed to escape. She was taken to nearby Palisades General Hospital, suffering from a broken hip.

By nightfall, firefighters played water on the smoking rubble of several houses. The remains of a brick building loomed gauntly against gray smoke. Firefighters were particularly cautious because of possibly ruptured gas mains. The crash knocked out power in the surrounding blocks.

At the jet’s crash site, Pierson, standing amid fire equipment and ambulances, said that the simultaneous crashes occurred at 5:05 p.m. and that there were two explosions.

‘No survivors on Plane’

“The fire site is so hot nobody can go in. There are no survivors on that plane. How many people were home at 5:05 p.m. on a Sunday night, how many people got out nobody can say.”

Dave Black, a resident of the neighborhood in which the jet struck, said he looked through the window of one destroyed building just moments before the crash and saw a family eating dinner.

There were reports from neighbors down the street that one of the families in a building struck by the jet was having a party when the crash demolished the frame house.

Michael Feher, another neighbor who was one of the first on the scene, said that he heard an explosion, apparently from the two planes colliding.

As Feher emerged from his front door, he said that he heard a second explosion and saw the front of the buildings blow out.

‘Buildings Blew Apart’

“The buildings just blew apart,” Feher said. “There was no way anyone in the buildings or on the jet could have gotten out alive,” he said.

Feher’s brother John, a Cliffside Park firefighter, ran down the street with him.

“Two buildings were already engulfed. There were several explosions,” he said. “A lot of people were just standing there looking at it. I can’t believe people were standing there. A telephone pole was on fire. I told them ‘get the hell out of here.’ ”

Firefighters fought the blaze for more than three hours before it was declared under control. The fireball and its dense black smoke were visible for miles.

The crash sites were approximately five blocks apart. The prop plane plowed into the ground on Camina Street in Fairview. The jet hit in Cliffside Park at Third and Cliff streets.

Attempts at Looting

Dozens of ambulances and some 200 firefighters from seven fire companies converged on the scenes of the crashes. The investigation was hampered by some looting. Police said several bystanders attempted to take airplane parts. But they were stopped, and the parts were recovered.

Cliffside Park, Fairview and Fort Lee are residential communities directly across the Hudson River from Manhattan. New York City police sent helicopters to illuminate the area, and hundreds of onlookers crowded streets in the two densely populated suburbs. Police cordoned off a four-square mile area encompassing both communities.

The pilots were in touch with the control tower at Teterboro shortly before the crash, said Peter Nelson, an FAA spokesman in New York.

According to transcripts of radio conversations, the pilot of the jet said he saw the Piper Cherokee and the pilot of the smaller plane said he was clear of the area where the jet was supposed to be, Nelson said.