All 5 Aboard Plane Die as It Crashes on an Interstate in New Jersey
A single-engine plane on its way to Atlanta spun out of control over northern New Jersey and crashed onto a busy highway on Tuesday, killing all five people aboard — two investment bankers, and the wife and two children of one of the bankers.
No one on the ground was injured, the authorities said, though the plane, which crashed on Interstate 287 in Harding Township, in southern Morris County, almost hit a southbound pickup. A dog aboard the plane was also killed.
They did not officially identify the victims, but Greenhill & Company, an investment bank based in New York, said it believed that two of its managing directors, Jeffrey F. Buckalew, 45, and Rakesh Chawla, 36, were aboard the plane, as were Mr. Buckalew’s wife, Corinne, their son, Jackson, and their daughter, Meriwether.
Mr. Buckalew was a pilot and owned the plane, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
The airplane, a Socata TBM-700, left Teterboro Airport at 9:51 a.m., bound for DeKalb-Peachtree Airport near Atlanta. A few minutes after takeoff, the pilot spoke with air-traffic controllers about icing, said Robert Gretz, a senior air safety investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board. The pilot did not sound distressed, he said, and it was unclear if he was reporting ice on his wings or asking about icy areas.
The plane disappeared from radar screens at 17,500 feet. The crash occurred 14 minutes after takeoff.
Michelle Bellog, 43, was in the upstairs dining room of her two-story house about a block away when she heard the plane, with its engine sputtering.
“This plane was very loud because it was so close, and its engines would stop and start,” she said. “And the pilot was trying to rev it to keep the engines going.”
She said she rushed to her window and saw the small plane, now at treetop level, “engulfed in dark, gray smoke” and flying northeast, toward the Interstate and Morristown Municipal Airport.
Ms. Bellog said she heard an explosion, which shook her house, as the plane began falling apart; pieces of the aircraft fell from the sky onto her neighbors’ lawns. Moments later, she saw the plane crest over the retaining wall that separates her neighborhood from the highway.
A split second after that, she heard a bigger explosion and saw a plume of black smoke rise from the road. “The smoke was rising up, just billowing up,” she said. “I was terrified.”
The plane hit the southbound lanes, crashed through the wooded median and continued into the northbound lanes. Pieces were scattered across half a mile. All lanes of I-287 were closed immediately after the crash, though they were reopened by the evening.
“It’s a very traumatic crash,” said Lt. Stephen Jones of the New Jersey State Police. “There is no cockpit to be seen.”
The Socata, which is considered relatively powerful for a single-engine aircraft, did not have a black box, but investigators were trying to recover its GPS device.
Greenhill’s chief executive, Scott L. Bok, said the men had been flying south for a short business meeting, after which Mr. Buckalew and his family planned to stay in the area for the holidays. Mr. Chawla was scheduled to take a commercial flight back home after the meeting, Mr. Bok said.
Mr. Chawla joined the firm in 2003 after stints at Credit Suisse and the Blackstone Group and advised clients like the Treasury Department and Charles Schwab. His wife, Cathleen, is a fellow graduate of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Chawla had three young daughters, Mr. Bok said.
Mr. Buckalew was the head of Greenhill’s North American Corporate Advisory activities. He had joined the firm in 1996 after three years at Salomon Brothers and two years with the leveraged finance group of Chemical Bank.
An avid fan of the basketball and football teams at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he received a bachelor’s degree and an M.B.A., Mr. Buckalew was also a formidable golfer. He tied for 94th on Golf Digest’s list of “top golfers in finance” in 2007, and often won Greenhill’s annual summer golf outing, Mr. Bok said.
“He was almost the polar opposite of a Wall Street banker,” Mr. Bok said. “He was very comfortable in his own skin.”
Mr. Buckalew, who served on the board of directors for his alma mater’s Arts and Sciences Foundation, flew his plane to the board meetings in North Carolina, said James W. May, the foundation’s executive director. “It was clearly something he enjoyed,” Mr. May said of the flying hobby. “It brought a smile to his face.”
Ms. Buckalew, 45, was a visual artist and was on the board of the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts in Amherst, Va., according to the center’s Web site.
She and the two children had moved this year to Charlottesville, Va., where the family had a home, said Landis C. Best, a friend of Ms. Buckalew. They had wanted to be closer to relatives in North Carolina, Ms. Best said, and provide opportunities for their son, Jackson, 9, to play lacrosse.
Mr. Buckalew, who also owned an apartment on East 69th Street, often flew to and from the Virginia home, said Frances Buckalew, his 100-year-old great aunt.
She said the family had named Meriwether, 6, after her husband.
“When they married, she fell in love with my husband and loved his name,” she said of Corinne Buckalew. “She said, ‘If we ever have a little girl, we’ll name her Meriwether.’ ”
Frances Buckalew, who lives in Richmond, Va., said she recently received a holiday card from the family.
“It said they hope to see me during Christmas,” she said.
Michael J. de la Merced, Winnie Hu and Nate Schweber contributed reporting
