What A Crime To Ignore This

1 Taken To Hospital After Crash

By STEPHEN R. LEVINE and JOLYN RESNICK Times Leader Staff
Writer
 Monday, December 13, 1999 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 1A 





CLIFTON TWP. - A private jet crashed in the Poconos Sunday afternoon,
killing all three people aboard, federal officials said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The Westwind 1124 aircraft - a twin-engine turbo jet - crashed without
warning about 4:45 p.m., Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathryn
Creedy said. The plane departed at 12:18 p.m. eastern time from Boeing Field
in Seattle en route to Teterboro Airport in northern New Jersey, she said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``There was no indication of problems prior to the loss on radar,'' she
said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Air traffic controllers lost sight of the plane on radar just before the
crash, Creedy said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 According to witnesses and Trooper Bill Satkowski, of the state police at
Dunmore, the plane came spinning down nose-first and crashed about 100 feet
from a mobile home park off Clifton Beach Road. Satkowski said there were
about 50 trailers in the park. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Those at the scene said no one on the ground was injured, but debris was
scattered about the area. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are expected to arrive on
the scene this morning, Satkowski said. He said the bodies will not be removed
until officials arrive. He would not identify the victims. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Television reports identified one of the passengers as Peter La Haye, a
Seattle businessman and humanitarian. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Bill Wombacker, 33, said he was hanging Christmas lights for his mother
when he heard the plane sputtering overhead. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``I heard an explosion, like a motor blew out,'' he said. ``The plane did a
flip, turned around and came down.'' Wombacker said the plane hit a tree, then
exploded when it hit the ground. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Wombacker said he ran to the crash site, but could not help. He said he has
been a firefighter since he was a teenager but has ``never seen anything like
that.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 He said state police and other rescue personnel were on the scene soon
after the plane hit the ground. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Satkowski said about 200 emergency personnel responded. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The Rev. Lori Steffensen, who ministers at a nearby Methodist Church, was
called to the site to ``offer support'' to the rescue crews. ``It's not pretty
in there,'' she said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 C. Robert Decker, who lives in a nearby house, said he heard two explosions
as the plane went down. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The first ``sounded like thunder or an empty truck going by,'' Decker said.
Moments later, ``there was a huge explosion. It just rocked the house.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Decker said he saw ``a big huge ball of flame in a wooded area behind the
trailer park.'' He smelled jet fuel, a scent similar to kerosene, and ran
toward the crash site. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``I was running down there, and there was still stuff falling out of the
air,'' he said. ``I saw some wreckage laying beyond the trailers. I saw the
wheels, part of the landing gear.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Another neighbor said her windows shook as the plane went by. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``We thought it was coming in the house,'' Lucille Wombacker said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Officials at Teterboro Airport could not be reached, but a jet pilot and
instructor who works at the airport said the plane wasn't necessarily
expected. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``You don't need a reservation, you just show up and land there,'' the
pilot said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The pilot, who declined to give his name, said flight plans are filed on
departure, but the destination airport sometimes won't know a plane is landing
until moments before it sets down. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 He said if the Westwind 1124 was headed directly from Seattle to New
Jersey, odds were against it making the trip nonstop. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 However, Satkowski said he believed the plane did not land elsewhere before
the crash. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The pilot said if the plane did run out of fuel, it would still have a fair
amount of unusable fuel in its wings that could explode on impact. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``A turbo jet would never have the range to get there,'' he said. ``It's
sort of the outer limit. Maybe with a real good tailwind.'' &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Winds were light and visibility good - about 10 miles - at the time of the
crash, which happened about 10 minutes after sunset, said National Weather
Service meteorologist Barry Lambert. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 ``As far as we can see, there weren't any adverse weather conditions,'' he
said. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The Associated Press contributed to this report

3 Dead As Jet Crashes In Poconos Officials Expected To Investigate Site Where New Jersey-bound Plane From Seattle Suddenly Plunged From Sky