Five including an Indian Killed in Small Plane Crash on New Jersey Highway

Harding, New Jersey: Two investment bankers were among five people killed Tuesday when a small plane crashed on a New Jersey highway.
Jeffrey F. Buckalew, 45, and Rakesh Chawla, 36, worked in the New York offices of Greenhill and Company, the firm said in a statement. Buckalew owned the plane and was piloting it.
The other victims were believed to be Buckalew's wife, Corinne, and their two children, Jackson and Meriwether, according to the statement.
The single-engine Socata TMB-700 went down on Interstate 287 in Harding, N.J., at 10:04am.
It had taken off from Teterboro Airport in Bergen County -- about 33 miles east of Harding -- at around 9:50am, and was flying at an altitude of 17,500 feet before it crashed, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) spokesman Bob Gretz said at a press conference Tuesday.
A fire erupted after the crash, and debris were spread in a half-mile radius from the impact site, Gretz said.
It was not known what caused the plane to go down. Gretz said a complete fact-finding investigation would take six to 12 months.
The plane had been in contact with an FAA radar facility in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., and lost communication shortly before the crash.
Gretz said the pilot had been speaking to the FAA about icing. It was not immediately known if the pilot was referring to ice in the clouds or on the aircraft, but the communication was described by Gretz as a conversation, "not a distress call."
20/12/11 NewsCore/FoxNews

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Categories: Foreign Dec 2011, Safety Dec 2011