Witness Dennis Karjanis, 62 of New Haven took these photos of the plane just seconds after it struck two houses and exploded. (Dennis Karjanis)
Bill Henningsgaard (Facebook)
Maxwell Henningsgaard (Facebook)
Bill Henningsgaard and his mother are seen in this April 24, 2009, on the wing of his plane after it crashed in the Columbia River. Henningsgaard and his son, Max, were reported killed when their plane crashed into homes in East Haven, Conn., Friday. Photo courtesy Sheryl Todd (SHERYL TODD
)
A pilot who once ditched a plane over water crashed a twin-engine aircraft into two Connecticut homes today — killing two children on the ground along with himself and his teen son, authorities said.
Bill Henningsgaard, 54, and his son, Max, 17, who live in Oregon, were heading from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey to New Haven as part of an east coast college tour when the plane went down around 11:25 a.m.
The impact created a huge fireball and ripped the homes apart — killing a 1-year-old and 13-year-old who had no chance of escaping.
Their frantic mother ran outside in a panic and begged her neighbors for help.
“She was screaming Get my kids get my kids! Help help!” said local mechanic Dennis Karjanis, 62. “Two other fellas on the street came over and they… ran in there. They couldn’t find the kids. We just weren’t getting anywhere.
“Then Bang! Everything blew up. The mother was seriously distraught and crying. She fell down on her knees. She was pounding on the ground. We just couldn’t find where the kids were.
“It’s beyond words how sad this all is. My heart breaks for her.”
Frank Diglio, 55, told The Hartford Courant that he and another man tried to dig through the rubble to find the children, but had to leave after 10 minutes because of the blaze’s intensity.
“I’m crying now because I couldn’t find them,” he said.
Airplane mechanic Robert Mallory, who lives nearby, said he heard a troubling noise coming from the Rockwell International Turbo Commander 690 B just before it went down.
“It sounded like someone stuck a stick in a lawnmower,” he told the Courant. “It just stopped.”
Wilson Idrovo said he was working on a house nearby when his son said, “Daddy, the airplane is falling down.”
East Haven Mayor Joseph Maturo said, “It’s total devastation in the back of the home.”
The father and son took off from Teterboro shortly before 10:50 a.m. as they headed to Tweed New Haven Airport .
Henningsgaard had to abort his first landing attempt and then crashed on the second try.
Tweed’s airport manager, Lori Hoffman-Soares, said the pilot had been in communication with air traffic control and never issued a distress call.
“All we know is that it missed the approach and continued on,” she told the AP.
The plane is registered to Ellumax Leasing LLC, which is based in Medina, Washington. A company spokeswoman refused to comment.
This wasn’t Henningsgaard’s first crash.
He once went down into the Columbia River in Washington state in 2009 with his elderly mother on board — which is why he bought the new plane.
“Bought a plane to replace the one that turned out not to be amphibious,” he joked on Facebook last year.
Henningsgaard blogged about the crash on a website called SVP Seattle — blaming the mishap on engine failure.
“Ten days ago, I took off in a small plane from Astoria, taking my 84-year- old mother up to Seattle to watch my daughter Lucy, aged 15, in her high school play,” wrote Henningsgaard, a former employee of Microsoft and the acting executive director and board chair of Eastside Pathways.
“Ten minutes into the flight, at 8000 feet and already across the Columbia River and over the Washington coast, the engine coughed briefly. Ten seconds later it died,” he added.
The pilot was able to soft-land the plane on the river.
“The plane was starting to pitch forward, being pulled toward the bottom by the heavy engine, causing the wing we were standing on to start to tilt,” he wrote. “When the plane went nose-down, we’d be in the water. I’d like to tell you I felt brave and confident at that moment, that I knew we’d make it.
“But what I felt was fear. Fear of the exhaustion and panic and very possibly death as we tried for shore. Desperation that I couldn’t come up with any alternative to trying to make that swim. Shame that I put my mother into this situation.”
Luckily for the two, another pilot witnessed the crash and a rescue boat was able to pluck them right from the wing.
That moment stands out in my memory like a blessing, a gift,” he wrote. “Seeing that boat meant that we were going to live.”
Char ter oak ave. pic.twitter.com/LysfUx2O5D
— Jennifer Swift (@byjenniferswift) August 9, 2013
Plane hit the house :o pic.twitter.com/tZYbO4OvJ2
— jamie ferrucci (@Jamie_Ferruccii) August 9, 2013
Scene at 64 Charter Oak Ave pic.twitter.com/LGJKRJFVAy
— Evan Lips (@evanmlips) August 9, 2013
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