Mayday on April morning: Small plane crash at front yard of New Jersey home

A small plane crashed into the front yard of a house on South Main Street in Manville on Monday, not far from Central Jersey Regional Airport in Hillsborough.

According to FlightAware.com, the 2006 single-engine Mooney M20M plane took off from Piedmont Triad International Airport in Greensboro, North Carolina at 10:42 am local time and was headed towards Hillsborough.

Also read: Suspect arrested in California shooting incident; all 6 dead identified

“A single-engine Mooney M20M crashed in a yard north of Central Jersey Regional Airport around 1 pm local time today,” said Eva Lee Ngai, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration. “We do not yet know the number of people on board.”

According to Lt. John Crater of the Manville Police Department, there were no casualties at the scene, and the pilot was the only occupant of the plane and was brought to a local hospital for treatment. The pilot’s status was unknown at the time.

According to Crater, the incident sparked a little fire, which firefighters quickly doused.

The damaged plane landed partially on top of a parked automobile and fell trees. The jet was lifted onto a flatbed tow vehicle shortly before 5 pm.

Also read: US supporting multinational team collecting evidence of Ukraine atrocities: Official

Sharon Liszczak, a neighbour, said the plane landed in the yard of a man who is frequently in front of his house working on his automobile. He was at home at the time, although he was not outside when the plane crashed.

Another neighbour, Mike Szymanski, who lives next door to where the plane crashed landed, was not at home at the time but returned to find emergency cars nearby. He claimed he wasn’t surprised to find it was a downed jet, given how frequently planes arrive at the airstrip.

“Somewhere along the line, we’re going to have an accident,” the 96-year-old resident said. “I didn’t hope for it, but I expected it.”

Szymanski, who has lived in the area since 1956, expressed relief that the pilot survived the incident.

This plane crashed landed on the tops of numerous trees near where a Cessna crashed landed in September 2019 and remained wedged for several days before being removed. That pilot was trapped in the jet for four hours before being rescued by a local tree service.

Also read: Russia removed two-third of its troops from Kyiv, ‘consolidating in Belarus’: Pentagon

According to public records, the jet that crashed on Monday was owned by a consultancy firm in North Carolina. Messages left with the company were not responded promptly Monday evening.

According to the FAA, the crash will be investigated by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.