Wednesday, February 2nd started out with blue skies and warmer weather; the prospect of a nice day. I was in my bathroom about 7:00 AM when I heard a sound I never heard in all the years in my home. It was the sound of metal folding. The hair on the back of my neck started to stand up and my intuition said plane crash. Ten seconds after that thought my phone rang. My worst fears were confirmed - a jet had broken through the fence at Teterboro Airport, crossed Route 46 and stopped in a building across the highway.

I was at the crash site for about three hours. What I saw left me shocked and horrified. I was heartsick the whole day. I want to take this opportunity to give heartfelt thanks to all of the volunteers on the Hasbrouck Heights Fire Department for the excellent, well-coordinated, professional job they did during this very volatile situation. The jet had a whole tank of fuel and our Fire Department displayed huge resources of bravery and heroism in protecting lives.

For the past three years, I have not been attempting to close Teterboro Airport as some people may say. What I have been doing is trying to bring some sort of compromise to the table. I am very deeply concerned about the safety of the densely packed residential communities which surround Teterboro Airport, ours included.

I do not expect to close one of Port Authority's highly profitable "economic engines." However, I do expect the Port Authority to be accountable for its operation of Teterboro Airport. I also do expect Port Authority to do everything necessary to ensure safety for the residents, quality of life for the residents, to lessen the impact of noise and allow children to learn, and, depending on the results of the environmental impact study, lessen any ill health affects from aircraft emissions.

Aircraft double the size, and sometimes 3 times the size, of the aircraft that crashed this past week use Teterboro Airport on a daily basis. You must ask yourselves, where is the buffer zone, where are the safety barriers, how can Teterboro Airport handle a crash of larger aircraft. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that as the size of the jet increases, so does the size of the emergency.

Port Authority has already vastly expanded Teterboro Airport and has more plans on the table for further expansion, all without being above board and giving notice to its surrounding neighbors. It seems very ironic to me that there was a statement in the paper about cutting flight activity, but no mention as to how much - by 1,000 flights a year, 2,000. Would those numbers really matter with 202,000 flights a year?

For those of you who feel Teterboro Airport was there first, I have friends in Wood-Ridge whose homes are over 100 years old. In fact, Port Authority condemned neighborhoods with a view toward expanding their "testing" facility. Irrespective of who you feel came first, what is obvious to those who have lived here a long time is that Port Authority not only lacks the integrity and honesty to be forthcoming about its growth and expansion, but has exhibited blatant disregard for the impact it creates on its neighbors as it expands facilities and covers wetlands.

Right in your own backyards, look back over the past 6 months and it will have to be acknowledged that Teterboro Airport had a major cocaine operation busted in August (despite representations at public meetings that everyone who uses the facility is known); a 73,000 pound jet aircraft blew off the south end runway in December (in the vicinity of your children's soccer field); and this recent jet crash which, only by the grace of God, could have been very much worse.

Our community was very lucky in 1999 when the aircraft landed in the middle of four backyards; we were equally very lucky last week that there were no children on buses going to school and that the light on the highway was red. Will the third time be charmed?

Jet Crash Amazingly Causes No Deaths
11:35 AM PST, February 3, 2005
By DAVID PORTER, Associated Press Writer

TETERBORO, N.J. — Passengers and crew members of a corporate jet that skidded off a runway and roared across a six-lane highway managed to walk or crawl from the fiery wreckage, and authorities expressed amazement that no one was killed.
   About 20 people were taken to hospitals, including two injured in their cars, after the crash Wednesday at Teterboro Airport, about 12 miles from midtown Manhattan.
   "I think everybody at this point is extremely lucky and fortunate," acting Gov. Richard J. Codey said.
   The jet left a trail of destruction just seconds after a crew member said, "Discontinue takeoff." The aircraft smashed into two cars on the highway and came to rest with its nose in the wall of a warehouse.
   All 11 people on the plane were taken to the hospital; the most seriously hurt among them was one of the pilots, who had a broken leg. One of those injured in a car, James Dinnall, 66, remained in critical condition Thursday morning. Five firefighters and a man in the warehouse also were hurt.
   At a hospital news conference Thursday, Rohan Foster said he was sitting at a stoplight when Dinnall, his passenger, yelled, "Look out!" Foster ducked instinctively as the jet hurtled past, shearing off the top of his Toyota.
   "I thought the plane had gone over," Foster said. "Then I blacked out. When I woke up, I didn't know what had happened." Foster suffered a broken nose and some cuts and bruises, but was otherwise in good spirits.
   The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Bombardier Canadair Challenger CL-600 had been chartered by Kelso & Co., a New York-based investment firm, to take company employees and guests to Chicago.
   Investigators said there was no indication of trouble on the cockpit voice recorder until either the pilot or co-pilot said, "Discontinue takeoff."
   "The crew made a decision to discontinue takeoff. There was no indication why. The tape ends with the impact," the National Transportation Safety Board's Deborah Hersman said Thursday morning.
   Investigators walked the length of the 6,013-foot runway but found no spilled fuel or debris or any evidence that the plane's wings or tail struck the pavement, Hersman said.
   The plane's flaps and thrust reversers were properly positioned, she said. 
   Investigators hope to speak Thursday with the pilot and co-pilot, both of whom were hospitalized. They both were listed in fair condition Thursday morning, said Peggy Schunk, a spokeswoman at Hackensack University Medical Center.
   The airport and adjacent highway were open Thursday morning. Investigators had covered the airplane, still lodged in the warehouse, with a black tarp.
   On Wednesday, wheel tracks, plainly visible in snow, could be seen running straight off the end of the runway, through a fence and a snowbank, and then across U.S. 46.
   "Usually we see them lift off, but this one just went straight and started scratching the ground. There were sparks shooting out all over the place," said Joseph Massaro, who lives nearby.
   Bruce Hicks, a spokesman for the aircraft service company that fueled the plane before the crash, said his company did not de-ice the aircraft because the pilots did not request it. Other aircraft had taken off from the airport Wednesday morning without being de-iced, he said.
   Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Greg Martin said communication between air traffic control and the aircraft was routine before the crash. The weather was clear and wind was calm, with the temperature around 20 degrees.
   A similar plane, a Canadair CL-601 Challenger, crashed in November in Colorado while trying to take off, killing a son of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and two others.
   Kelso & Co. declined to identify the five employees and three guests on board. It issued a statement expressing relief the passengers survived, adding, "We hope that the flight crew and anyone else who may have been injured in today's accident will also be all right."