A small plane broke apart during an aborted landing at Monmouth Executive Airport yesterday afternoon, killing all five on board. Witnesses sledding on a nearby hill say the plane, a Cessna 337 Skymaster, did not have its landing gear down and it appeared the pilot had been coming in for a landing, then tried to abort. One bystander says that as the plane pulled up, the tail of the plane broke off, the right wing dipped, and the main body of the Cessna rolled before crashing upside down into a snowy field by the runway, scattering debris over 200 feet.
''It was so surreal," Wayne Matichuk, who was sledding nearby, told the Star-Ledger. "After it happened, every one of us turned around and said, 'Did that really just happen?''' Police say at least three of the victims were related, including a father and son. One of the victims was a teenager and another a younger boy; two were from New Jersey and three were from out of state. The two juveniles were thrown from the plane, and thermal imaging had to be used to locate one of them.
The Cessna 337 Skymaster is known in aviation circles as a "Push Me, Pull You" because its twin engines are located in the nose and behind the fuselage. The plane was based at the airport and was returning to land when the crash occurred. Capt. Tim Clayton of the Wall Township police told the AP that relatives of some of the victims were at the airport when the crash occurred, but it was not clear if they had witnessed the crash.
