Two people suffered minor injuries Friday afternoon when a small plane made a forced landing in Yorktown, NY, on its way to Norwood Memorial Airport, MA, according to local, county and federal officials.
The area of the crash scene is at the entrance of the IBM research facility at Pines Bridge Road, just north of the town border with New Castle. Officials said the plane, a BE36 Beechcraft, was en route from Teterboro (NJ) Airport when it developed mechanical problems and the pilot attempted to divert to Westchester County Airport.
Officials said the two men in the plane were treated at the scene by medics and then taken to Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla. They were conscious and alert with non-life threatening injuries when emergency responders arrived at the scene.
"This is a miracle," Lt. Robert Noble said of the crash and the way it ended. "I mean it really is. It's a miracle there wasn't a fatality."
The plane was reported to have crashed at 4:35 p.m. as it entered the field from the northeast. It belly landed on the grassy field, up on a small hill.
"It's a tragedy that was averted here," Lt. Noble said.
Police were still speaking with witnesses about the situation and officials were trying to get a handle on the pilot's injuries.
"Thankfully he landed and did a hell of a job landing," Lt. Noble said.
Sal Lagonia, of Yorktown, who is an aviation lawyer and a safety consultant, said it looks like the pilot was intentionally looking for an open field to land. He diverted to the Westchester County Airport, but had to land sooner.
"There's a billion things that could go wrong," Lagonia said. "It looked like he had to find a place to come down. That's what pilots typically do."
The plane is a 1996 private aviation craft that is registered to Mark Ehrenzeller of Hopkinton, MA. Officials have not yet confirmed the identities of the two men. It was not clear whether Ehrenzeller was the pilot.
Neighbors, IBM employees and children in the area surrounded the site, which is just a few hundred yards from the day care center Country Children's Center on Pines Bridge Road.
Michell Cambareri, who lives near by on Crow Hill Road, was walking her dog when she said she saw the plane flying low near the trees. There was no smoke or flames coming out of the plane, but she heard the engine sputtering.
"I saw the plane flying in the air, having engine difficulty and it was sputtering," she said. "Then, it looked liked the pilot was trying to turn on the engine again, but every time he tried, it just cut off."
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Amen, brother.......I, too, am a former general aviation pilot......single engine and VFR only. But my Dad was VFR, IFR, and multi-engine rated, and owned a Beechcraft Travelair B95 ---- I feel sorry for the individual who thinks that "small aircraft" are INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS (LOL) ........I'll take a Cessna 152 ANYDAY over driving to the grocery store !!! And yes, I totally agree with you, that small plane power off landings do indeed heavily increase your chance of survival. Thanks, Robert for your great post and positive comments about general aviation. Libby Brockman, Batesville, Arkansas, formerly born and raised in the great SOUTHERN part of Illinois !!!
small plane can crash land on a "dime " nice meadow , now can if we get all these peoples off the grass they do more damage to it than the plane landing .
parachutes are only effective at a certain altitutde. after that they are only useless decoration to mark the crash site
if it has been a larger aiplane , all the Hero in the red truck would be gatheing body part pinned in the trees , they also would have been a fire ball due to large amount of fuel , I seriousely doubt anyone would have walked away from that specific crash. The only place in the country with large numbers of small planes crash is Alaska and they are mostly weather related , in this case it seem to have been somekind of engine failure and this is fairly rare , small plane owner take less short cut that major air carrier as per a study of the FAA for a good reason The pilots are flying their own plane .
The town is part of what is often considered the northern suburbs of New York City — about 90 minutes from Manhattan in Westchester County.
Pilots are trained to make such an emergency landing, however few in general aviation practice regularly or keep their cool well enough to follow the procedure which requires immediately pushing the nose down to keep the plane in a glide and not cause it to stall (a term meaning that there is not enough wind speed over the wings to maintain lift for the glide). These gentlemen did what they had been trained to do and were able to walk away. Fortunately there was a field to make the emergency landing in.
It is over 100 years since Orville and Wilbur did their thing and flight seems to be magic to most of the public. Should we blame our education system, the media, fear mongering politicians or all of the above!