Federal officials said it could take days to fully recover the wreckage of a small Cessna plane that crashed into a quiet New Jersey neighborhood Tuesday, killing the pilot and damaging three homes.
“It will be a piece by piece effort, and we expect it to take about two or three days,” National Transportation Safety Board investigator Adam Gerhardt said at a briefing at the scene in Woodbridge Township. “Given the weather conditions, it may take longer.”
Pilot and professional cardiologist Michael Schloss, 74, was killed when his Cessna 414A crashed into the Woodbridge community of Colonia.
No other fatalities or injuries were reported.
Paul Dudley, the director of Linden Ariport in New Jersey, where Schloss was scheduled to land, called him “a Renaissance man” who was also a licensed airplane mechanic.
“This is a loss to medicine and to aviation,” Dudley said. “There should be more like him.”
Fellow pilot Tom Madden called Schloss “a top-shelf man.”
Schloss had a cardiology practice in Manhattan, but residents in the Kips Bay neighborhood said Wednesday that he sold the building about a year ago.
His family could not be reached for comment.
The NTSB said the recovery of the plane is “a challenge” because of the craft’s condition.
Small passenger planes do not carry a “black box,” but Gerhardt said most carry flight logs — if it survived the crash.
He said a final report on the cause of the crash could take up to two years.
With Post wires
Source: Read Full Article