Story highlights Two people were killed in the crash, police say

Police: No injures on the ground

(CNN) Two people aboard a Learjet were killed when the aircraft crashed Monday afternoon near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, Carlstadt Mayor Craig Lahullier said

Initially, Carlstadt Police said the pilot and co-pilot had died but hours later authorities said they couldn't immediately confirm their deaths.

Authorities said information on the two people on board will be provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Learjet 35 crashed around 3:30 p.m. about a quarter-mile from the airport in Bergen County as it approached a runway, the FAA said.

There were no injuries on the ground, police said.

Read More</s>CARLSTADT, N.J. (CBS)—Authorities are investigating after a plane from Philadelphia crashed near an airport in New Jersey on Monday.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration a Learjet 35 went down as it approached the runaway at Teterboro Airport.

The crash happened about ¼ a mile from the Teterboro Airport in a wooded area.

Thick plumes of smoke can be seen billowing near the crash scene.

“It was like a missile just came down,” one witness told CBS New York.

It’s reported that the crash sent more than a dozen cars up in flames.

“All the cars were on fire, all the fuel went all over it,” said the witness.

Authorities tell CBS New York that two crewmembers of the plane were killed.

The FAA says the flight departed from Philadelphia International Airport and was headed to Teterboro.

This story will be updated.</s>A Learjet 35 crashed Monday as it approached a runway at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

The plane crashed about a half-mile from the airport in Teterboro.

The flight departed from Philadelphia International Airport and the FAA is on the way to the scene.</s>CARLSTADT, N.J. — The pilot and co-pilot died in a Learjet crash Monday afternoon as it approached Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, Carlstadt Police dispatcher Don Pomponio said.

The Learjet 35 crashed about a half-mile from the airport in Teterboro, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

A witness captured videos of the huge plume of black smoke coming from the wreckage and crews working to extinguish the flames.

The fire damaged at least one building and multiple cars.

No one else was on the plane, Carlstadt Police said. There were no injuries on the ground, police said.

The airport is 12 miles from midtown Manhattan. It handles general aviation and charter flights, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.</s>A Learjet crashed Monday while trying to land at a New Jersey airport, and several buildings were on fire, authorities told NBC News.

It wasn’t immediately known how many people were aboard the Learjet 35, which has a capacity of eight passengers and two pilots. There were also no immediate word on injuries.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane, which was flying from Philadelphia International Airport, went down about a quarter-mile short of Teterboro Airport in Carlstadt, about 15 miles northeast of Newark, at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Joe Orlando, a spokesman for the Borough of Carlstadt, told NBC News the plane hit at least three separate properties, including a Department of Public Works facility. He said the scene was like “something out of a movie.”

The airport was closed as thick smoke billowed over the scene. No further details were immediately available.

This is a developing story. Refresh this page for updates.

Smoke pours into the air after a small plane crashed in Carlstadt, New Jersey, on Monday. NBC New York</s>(ABC NEWS) -- Two crewmembers are dead after a small plane crashed this afternoon in an industrial area in the northern New Jersey town of Carlstadt, police say.

The Federal Aviation Administration said a Learjet 35 that was en route from Philadelphia International Airport to New Jersey's Teterboro Airport crashed at 3:30 p.m. while on approach to Runway 1 at Teterboro.

The plane went down in a residential area about a quarter of a mile from the airport, the FAA said.

There were no passengers on the plane and it appears that no one on the ground was hit, police say.

The FAA is heading to the scene.

Video on Twitter showed smoke billowing across the sky.

This story is developing. Please check back for more updates.</s>Two people aboard a Learjet were killed when the aircraft crashed Monday afternoon near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, Carlstadt Mayor Craig Lahullier said

Initially, Carlstadt Police said the pilot and co-pilot had died but hours later authorities said they couldn’t immediately confirm their deaths.

Authorities said information on the two people on board will be provided by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.

The Learjet 35 crashed around 3:30 p.m. about a quarter-mile from the airport in Bergen County as it approached a runway, the FAA said.

There were no injuries on the ground, police said.

The flight departed from Philadelphia International Airport, according to the FAA.

Carlstadt Police Deputy Chief Thomas Berta said the FAA wrapped up its work at the scene late Monday. The agency will work with the NTSB, which is investigating, according to Berta.

Earlier, police said authorities arrived at the crash scene to find that fire had engulfed two industrial buildings near a Carlstadt Department of Public Works building.

The last employee left the building about 15 minutes before the crash and locked the gate, Lahullier said.

“When we got there, in the middle of the fire … our gate was still locked, which gave us a good indication that he had already left the building,” the mayor said.

He added: “It’s a miracle. We were all out of there at that time.”

Video from the crash showed smoke billowing in the air.

“You could see parts of the engine,” he said. “They moved everybody else back because they started finding more parts of the airplane over by some of the other warehouse areas.”

The aircraft, which was built in 1981, is owned by A&C Big Sky Aviation LLC in Billings, Montana, according to FAA records. The company couldn’t be immediately reached.

The crash is the 53rd fatal Learjet 35 accident since 1977, according to the Aviation Safety Network.

Teterboro Airport is 12 miles from midtown Manhattan. It handles general aviation and charter flights, according to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

It is the oldest operating airport in the New York and New Jersey metropolitan area, according to the airport’s website.</s>CARLSTADT, N.J. — A jet trying to land at a small airport near New York City crashed less than a mile from the runway among small warehouses and industrial buildings Monday, killing two crew members and sparking a fire that sent thick, black smoke spewing into the air.

Surveillance video from a nearby business shows the moment of impact and then a huge fireball. A man can be seen running across a parking lot toward the crash site as smoke filled the sky.

Amazingly, no one on the ground was reported injured, police said. Employees at a public works building had left minutes earlier, according to one person who had been on the scene before the crash. Two of the three buildings involved in the crash sustained fire damage.

Police said no passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3:30 p.m. a quarter-mile (400 metres) from the runway at Teterboro Airport, a small but busy airport that is a favourite landing spot for the rich and famous.

Emergency responders worked for more than an hour to extinguish the blaze, which left a smouldering wreckage of cars in a parking lot. Police said 13 cars were damaged.

The plane was registered in Billings, Montana, to a company called A&C Big Sky Aviation, which has a residential address. The owners of the residence are Daniel and Julane Wells. There was no answer at their residence Monday night.

The airport was closed after the crash. Departing flights resumed in the evening, but no arriving flights were allowed.

Mayor Craig Lahullier said all town employees already had left for the day before the plane crashed next to its Department of Public Works building.

“I tell ya, it’s a miracle,” he said. “Thank God the guys were out of there, that’s all I can say.”

Town spokesman Joe Orlando said pieces of melted engine could be seen in the charred wreckage, along with wheels and part of the fuselage. Witnesses said they heard loud popping noises, apparently from car tires exploding in the heat and flames.

Orlando had left the public works building about 15 minutes before the plane hit. When he returned, he saw the plane’s engines on the ground.

“If this had happened 20 minutes earlier, people would have been at their cars,” he said. “That was the first thing I thought of: ‘I was just right there.’ You could see the fan blades, the landing gear. Car tires were blown off.”

Mark Dykstra, who lives across the street from the crash site, told NJ.com he felt the impact of the crash.

“We were sitting in our building, and we felt the whole building shake,” he said. “We went outside, and there was black smoke. Thick black smoke.”

Steve Case, an entrepreneur and co-founder of AOL who was aboard another plane at the airport waiting to take off, wrote in an Instagram post that the plane appeared to have missed a turn.

A Carlstadt police spokesman said the jet appeared to be listing before it crashed.

The National Weather Service warned of strong winds with gusts up to 45 mph (72 kph) just before the plane went down. The cause of the crash was under investigation.

The jet had flown from Teterboro to Bedford, Massachusetts, early Monday morning. It then flew to Philadelphia later Monday morning before leaving for Teterboro around 3 p.m.

Teterboro, which is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, is the oldest operating airport in the New York City area. It sits in a densely populated residential and industrial area just north of MetLife Stadium, where the NFL’s New York Jets and New York Giants play.

The airport was the scene of a 2005 crash: A corporate jet failed to take off, crossed a busy highway and slammed into a warehouse. There were no fatalities, but more than 20 people suffered injuries. The owners of the charter company — whose clientele over the years included opera singer Luciano Pavarotti, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards and rap mogul Jay-Z — later were convicted in federal court of skirting safety regulations.

In 2009, a plane taking off from Teterboro crashed into a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River, killing all nine people in the two aircrafts. A federal investigation later determined errors by an airport air traffic controller distracted by a personal phone call set the stage for the crash.

Associated Press writers Bruce Shipkowski and Josh Cornfield in Trenton contributed to this report.</s>A small plane on Monday crashed on approach near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey killing two pilots and sparking fires at two buildings that could be seen from New York, the Federal Aviation Administration and local police said.

The FAA said the Learjet 35 departed Philadelphia and went down at 3:30 p.m. local time about a quarter mile from the airport in a residential area in northern New Jersey on approach to Runway One. Carlstadt Police Sergeant John Cleary told reporters the plane hit one building in an industrial or manufacturing area, skidded across a parking lot and broke apart. The flaming debris then set a second building on fire, he said.

“The plane was seen listing to its left side so obviously there was some sort of malfunction,” Cleary said.

Carlstadt Police Department Sergeant Scott Jordan said two pilots had been killed in the crash.

No passengers were aboard the flight and Jordan had no information on the status of anyone on the ground.

The area around the fire scene was crowded with police and rescue equipment as smoke poured from a building still on fire. Some vehicles were also damaged on the ground at the crash site.

The FAA did not release information about the status of anyone aboard the aircraft. The FAA said it is sending a team to the site.

Teterboro Airport said in a statement it "has been closed and flight operations ceased following the crash of a Learjet on final approach to the airport." Flight data compiled by Flightaware, a website that tracks plane movements, said the Learjet 35 had started the day at Teterboro and flown to Massachusetts before flying to Philadelphia. The National Weather Service said strong winds had been reported in the area.</s>CARLSTADT, N.J. (AP) – A jet crashed at a small airport outside of New York City Monday afternoon, killing two crew members.

No passengers were aboard the Learjet 35 when it went down around 3:30 p.m. near Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

A Carlstadt town spokesman said that the plane crashed into a building in an industrial area. No one on the ground was injured.

The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
A Philadelphia-originating Learjet crashes in Carlstadt as it approached Teterboro Airport in New Jersey, killing at least two people.