New Jersey Plane Crash Kills Five

Wall, NJA small plane carrying five people went down in New Jersey yesterday, according to a report this morning from CNN and the Asbury Park Press. Officials from the Wall Township Police department confirmed that the pilot, two adult passengers, a teenager and a younger boy died in the plane accident. Names and ages were not released, but officials have stated that all five victims were male.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which will be investigating the crash with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), released few details of the crash yesterday.

The airplane crash occurred at Monmouth Executive Airport—a facility formerly known as Allaire Airport—in Wall Township, about 50 miles south of New York City on the New Jersey Coast, according to authorities. The FAA reports that the doomed aircraft was a Cessna Skymaster 337.

The Cessna Skymaster twin-engine plane is known in aviation circles as a "push-me-pull-you," as it features one engine in the nose and a second behind the fuselage.

Eyewitnesses told the Asbury Park Press that the plane appeared to be on approach for a landing at the airport, but the pilot attempted to abort as the left side of the rear twin tail broke off. The plane veered to the right, flipped, and nosedived into a snowy field alongside an airport runway. Police said the crash appears to have occurred at the northern end of the primary runway.

The flight is said to have originated at the airport, and that some family members were on the ground at the time. The weather was overcast, but no precipitation was falling at the time of the crash.

The airplane crash victims were recovered by about 8 pm last night. The bodies of the three men were found in the aircraft, and the two juveniles were found outside the aircraft. The plane was so badly mangled officials had trouble identifying the type of plane involved.

Two of the victims are from New Jersey, and two are from out of state, possibly from outside the country, Wall Police Captain Tim Clayton said. Two of them are father and son, he said. It is possible the aircraft was headed to New York for sightseeing.

The Cessna 337 Skymaster is registered to Jack Air LLC in Wilmington, Del., according to the FAA.