LINCOLN PARK, N.J. — A small plane crashed while trying to land at a northern New Jersey airport Thursday morning, injuring its pilot.
The craft came down near Lincoln Park Airport in Morris County, according to police and the Federal Aviation Administration. It came to rest near the parking lot of a garden store, where employees witnessed an injured man being pulled from the wreckage.
“It was an older gentleman, he was yelling, in pain,” said Nancy Bartlett, an office manager employed by Gro-Rite Greenhouse and Garden Center. “By the time we walked out there to see how it was going, there were police and an ambulance there, and then they pushed us all back because of a fuel leak. Then they took the guy out.”
The pilot, 61-year-old Leslie Gwyn-Williams of nearby Verona, is also the plane’s owner, according to Pequannock Police Lt. Dan Dooley.
According to Dooley, Gwyn-Williams had taken off from Morristown Memorial Airport and was scheduled to pick someone up at Lincoln Park Airport when he lost engine power on his approach and clipped a few trees before crashing at about 11:30 a.m.
Gwyn-Williams suffered multiple leg fractures, facial injuries and internal injuries and was conscious when rescuers arrived. He was taken by helicopter to Morristown Memorial Hospital, Dooley said.
Lincoln Park Airport is about 20 miles northwest of New York City. In 2008, a small plane carrying two people lost control on landing, hit a fence and guide rail at one end of the runway and ended up on a nearby road. In 2007, a plane took off and hit a power line before coming down on its belly and catching fire on the front lawn of a house in nearby Pompton Plains.