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Long Island Plane Crash Kills 3 Long Island Plane Crash Kills 3
(about 4 hours later)
Three people were killed on Tuesday when the small plane they were in crashed near a roadway on Long Island, the authorities said. SYOSSET, N.Y. — A single-engine plane crashed on Long Island on Tuesday, killing the three people onboard and showering debris over a two-mile area with dozens of homes, several schools and at least one busy thoroughfare, the authorities said.
The crash was reported shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Cold Spring Road in Syosset, N.Y., according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane was carrying three people from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Robertson Field in Plainville, Conn., outside Hartford, officials said. The crash was reported shortly after 2:30 p.m. on Cold Spring Road in Syosset, N.Y., according to a statement from the Federal Aviation Administration. The seven-passenger plane had two male adults and one female adult, who were traveling from Myrtle Beach, S.C., to Robertson Field in Plainville, Conn., outside of Hartford, officials said.
The Nassau County Police Department said no one on the ground had been injured, though the crash left a sizable debris field that prompted the authorities to close a section of Cold Spring Road. The F.A.A. said the crash was under investigation, and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine its cause. Robert Gretz, a senior air safety investigator for the board, said on Tuesday night that the plane went off radar and “broke up in flight” over Syosset.
The F.A.A. said the crash was under investigation, and the National Transportation Safety Board will determine its cause. The Nassau County police said no one on the ground had been injured, though a section of Cold Spring Road remained closed and residents were told by the authorities to stay close to their homes. Those who were away from home at the time of the crash said they had to park outside the police perimeter and be escorted in by officers.
Syosset, a hamlet of about 20,000 people near the eastern edge of the county, has homes with mostly wide, tree-covered lawns and several schools. Cold Spring Road is among the busiest streets in the neighborhood, residents said, with school buses ferrying students throughout the day.
At Harvest House, a independent-living retirement home with eight residents run by the Sisters of St. Dominic, Sister Mary Butler said she heard a noise while she was working at the computer. “You hear things, but you’re not quite sure,” she said. “You think it’s a big truck going by.”
Then she looked at the front yard of the home, where what appeared to be a piece of carry-on luggage had landed, and not far away, she saw a woman’s pocketbook. A piece of the aircraft landed near the driveway, she said.
Police officers knocked on the door to tell them what had happened and then searched the property. Hours later, Sister Butler said in a telephone interview, she could still hear helicopters flying overhead and saw investigators at work on the street.
Sue Gold, who lives nearby, said she was not at home at the time of the crash. But she could tell as she left work on Tuesday afternoon that something was wrong; her job is near a Nassau County police precinct station house, and she saw a string of police vehicles, fire engines and ambulances heading toward the area.
“I was thinking something might have happened at the high school,” she said.
As she got closer to home, Ms. Gold said, she saw fire engines with their ladders extended so that investigators could climb up and survey the debris area. Her street was blocked off, so she had to park around the corner and was escorted in.
A piece of the wing had crashed into her neighbor’s roof, she said, and a passenger seat had fallen in a yard. She also saw golf clubs strewed about.
Ms. Gold said she was troubled by the crash, but she was also relieved because no one on the ground was hurt. “We feel terrible for the people who lost their lives,” she said. “It could have been a lot worse. You have to understand, it’s a major thoroughfare. There are so many school buses that go down the street at all times.”
On Tuesday evening, as investigators were still scouring the area, Ms. Gold waited eagerly for her husband to get home. She had tried to go see a friend who lives nearby, but the police told her to stay on her property. Still, she said, they made sure she was not by herself for too long.
“I did not want to be inside the house alone,” Ms. Gold said.
“Stay here,” she said a police officer told her. “We’ll stay here with you.”