January seems to be a bad time for planes

'Any landing you can walk away from...'  


By BRYAN LAPLACA
COLUMNIST


I had just parked my car at the Pathmark on River Road in Edgewater on Jan. 15, 2009 and was walking into the store when a loud plane passing overhead made me look up. And I saw US Airways Flight 1549 coming in for a landing.

"But there's no runway behind Pathmark," I thought.

Of course, I had just seen the "Miracle on the Hudson" plane as it made an emergency landing on the Hudson River.

A plane also crashed into the Potomac River in Washington D.C. on Jan. 13, 1982, except that time instead of everybody being all right like in the 2009 incident, 74 of the 79 onboard died and four on the ground were killed. And on Jan. 18, 1979, a pilot survived after crashing his plane into a swamp in West Milford.

January seems to be a bad time for planes.

"I'm thankful to be alive," said 22-year-old pilot Roy T. Ruh, who walked away from the crash of his single-engine Piper Cherokee in the swamp on that Thursday morning.

Ruh was flying out of Sussex Airport when the engine stalled, forcing him to crash land in a swamp near Wawayanda State Park.

5-mile hike

Ruh escaped from the crash without any injuries, but had to hike more than five miles through the swamp and heavy underbrush before he could reach a house to notify police and the airport of the crash.

According to Ruh, he left Sussex Airport at 9 a.m., on a business trip to Long Island City. He was in the air about 20 minutes when the engine failed. He called a mayday to Teterboro Airport, which then notified the West Milford Police Department. The mayday was also heard by Aeroflex Airport near Newton, Lincoln Park Airport, and a helicopter flying in the area.

According to Ruh, he was about 2,700 feet in the air when the engine trouble developed. He said he switched tanks and was able to get the engine started again but by that time was only 100 feet above ground.

"My first reaction was to find a place to land that was not near any houses or buildings," Ruh said.

He noted the Wawayanda tract, thinking it was a field. He said he brought the plane down in a crash landing, killing the engine before he hit the ground to prevent a fire. The isolated area where the plane crashed is not too far from Greenwood Lake, and Ruh said he hiked more than an hour before he reached the home of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Schmoyer of Henderson Road.

The Schmoyers called a neighbor, John Egan of 169 Henderson Road, a pilot and former medical student, who checked Ruh for injuries and cold exposure.

Luck was with him
 
"All I can say, that young man lived under a lucky star," Egan said. "He proved he was a good pilot."

According to West Milford police, they received a call at about 9:45 a.m. from Teterboro Airport about the missing plane. Patrolmen Richard Brizell and Clayton Morley investigated, but could not find the downed plane. A second call was received about 11:05 from Schmoyer notifying the police of the crash and Ruh's safety.

The call was received as Brizell and Morley were searching the wooded area near Greenwood Lake. The officers said that unless the plane was seen actually going down, "no one could have found the crash from the ground."

Paul Styger, owner of Sussex Airport and the plane, said it was in excellent mechanical condition and indicated the engine failure could have been attributed to ice that had lodged in the carburetor.

He said this can happen occasionally in cold weather.

Styger said the weather was excellent, but cold and windy, when Ruh took off from the airport.

"I was sure glad to get that telephone call from Ruh," Styger said. "I am just thankful that he was not injured."

He said Ruh had been flying out of the airport for more than a year and was an experienced pilot, flying at least twice a week.

Styger said he hiked into the area to examine the plane. He said the wings were damaged, but the fuselage and engine were all right. He expected to take the plane within a few days, "when the snow and ice melts a little, so we can have access to the area."

Jan. 25, 1984 – Plane crash in Pequannock
 
A small, twin-engine airplane crashed into a home in Pequannock Township on Sunday, Jan. 22, 1984, killing the pilot and his three passengers.

National Transportation Safety Board investigator Eugene A. Carroll Jr. said that an official report on the crash would probably take months, and that his team and a team from the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating the crash of the Cessna 310 plane into the roof of the home at 6 Schuyler Ave. – not far from Lincoln Park airport where it had taken off.

The plane crashed from an altitude of about 850 feet into the roof of the home and then into a 23-foot-tall tree next to the house.

Killed in the crash were pilot Richard Cohen, 35, and three women in their 20s – all were from New York.

"We didn't even hear it coming, just one loud roar of the engine and it hit our house, shaking the foundation," Joni Vansant recalled.

Vansant, her husband, Steven, their two small children, and Steven's brother Jerry were in the living room of their split-level frame home on Schuyler Avenue when the airplane crashed on their property, taking part of the house down with it.

Amazed at how close her family had come to being killed, Vansant said, "We were sitting on the living-room couch, which is on the wall right next to where the plane hit."

The plane struck the left rear corner of the house, smashing into the roof and caving in the wall on two floors. Several windows and a wall air conditioner were blown out in the process.

A mad dash

According to Vansant, the smell of gas immediately became apparent and what followed was a "mad dash" to get out of the house in case the plane exploded. Although the plane had crashed between the telephone lines, the phone still worked and Jerry Vansant quickly called the police and followed his family out.

Joni Vansant said, "Steven and I only stopped to grab a coat for our 6-month-old and boots for our 4-year-old.''

The Vansants rushed across the street to neighbors Lenore and Tony Mauro. Watching from the Mauro's front window, Joni Vansant was surprised to see how fast the police and a crowd gathered.

She said, "All of a sudden the street was full of people, I saw people (from the block) I didn't even know."

Police, four first-aid squad teams, including the disaster van, and Volunteer Fire Companies 1 and 2 reported to the scene. Mark Konecke, 13, was at the scene before the police. He and his father were in their car on Comly Road when he saw the plane "was kind of low but going straight for a while. Then it moved from side to side and went straight down."

"Dad said it must have crashed. We're used to seeing planes disappear behind the trees but that plane went nose down," said Konecke.

"I walked right up to the plane and walked around to the left side of the compartment where no one was standing. I looked in the plane and saw the pilot. There was no sound, nobody moving. They were dead," said Konecke.

Joni Vansant said she didn't think that a crash like that would happen "in a million years," but that her mother-in-law always feared it would happen because of Schuyler Avenue's proximity to Lincoln Park Airport.

"I can't wait until everything is over, until that plane is gone, and the last person is off our front lawn. I'll tell you it's really strange to see a plane in your front yard," she said.

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