SYOSSET, N.Y. (AP) – Officials say three people are dead after a small plane broke up mid-flight, scattering debris across a residential Long Island neighborhood.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Robert Gretz says the pilot of the Beech BE-35 aircraft reported an issue with his instrument panel before the plane went down in Syosset Tuesday afternoon.
Gretz says two men and a woman on board were killed. He says investigators are still collecting pieces of the plane. The debris field stretches about two miles.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the plane took off from Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and was headed to Robertson Field, an airport in Plainville, Connecticut.
Members of high school sports teams told New York’s CBS affiliate they were sitting ducks.
“I was walking from the high school – I just got out – and I was in the sports fields. I just hear, you know, this plane kind of coming low, like, ‘Eeerrr!’ Like then like, I just assumed it was flying low, and I just hear, like, this loud, ‘Boom!’” one boy said. “And I kept hearing it go afterwards, it was like something happened, but then I just see debris raining down, like there’s this piece of fuselage kind of piece, and then like some other smaller pieces.”
“I was on the sports field – I had lacrosse practice today – and all of a sudden, we heard this, ‘Bbbbbb!’ and then, we were like, I didn’t know what it was, and I look up, and there’s pieces literally falling out of the sky,” a girl added. “And I knew my house – my house is right over there – and there’s literally pieces scattered everywhere, and girls were crying, and it was so terrifying.”
Investigators are still trying to determine what caused the aircraft to break up.
