Two heads of a Manhattan investment banking firm and the wife and two kids of one of the men died today in a small plane crash along a stretch of I-287 in New Jersey, authorities said.
Investigators said they were looking at the possibility that icing on the wings may have caused the crash.
Jeffrey Buckalew, 45, who lived on the Upper East Side, and his colleague Rakesh Chawla, 36, were killed along with Buckalew’s wife and children.
The men worked at Greenhill & Co. on Park Avenue, the company confirmed.
“The firm is in deep mourning over the tragic and untimely death of two of its esteemed colleagues and members of Jeff’s family,” the company said in a statement.
Victims Rakesh Chawla and Jeffrey Buckalew. Buckalew was piloting the plane. (
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Corinne and Meriwether Buckalew (
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A piece of the small plane hangs from a tree located between Hilltop Circle and James Street near I-287. (AP)
The company said the plane was registered to Buckalew, who was piloting the plane at the time of the crash.
Buckalew’s wife, Corinne, and their two children, Jackson and Meriwether, were on the plane, the company said.
“They were a beautiful family. Gorgeous children,” said a neighbor. “If you saw them in the street, you would stop and comment on how lovely they were. All of them, lovely. They were going away on a family trip. That’s what the doorman told us as we left.”
The Buckalew family had relatives in Georgia, friends said.
A dog was also believed to have been on board.
“It was like the plane was doing tricks or something, twirling and flipping,” said Chris Covello, who witnessed the crash from a nearby car dealership.
“It started going straight down. I thought any second they were going to pull up. But then the wing came off and they went straight down.”
Police said the bodies were still in the plane at the time of the crash and that no motorists were involved.
The FAA said the Socata TBM-700 single-engine turboprop had taken off from nearby Teterboro Airport at 9:51 a.m. and was headed for DeKalb Peachtree Airport near Atlanta when it lost radio communication.
Witnesses reported the plane spiraling out of control at about 10 a.m., losing pieces, hitting the ground and exploding.
Helicopter footage from News 12 New Jersey showed charred wreckage and state police said the highway was closed in both directions.
Shona Sternberg, a witness, said she was about three cars behind where the plane went down and saw an explosion when the aircraft hit.
She said it looked like the right wing was breaking off before the plane went down.
David Williamson, 19, was doing maintenance at a golf course in Morristown when he spotted a plane in trouble, with smoke coming off both sides of the wings.
“It was really scary,” he said.
When the plane crashed, he said, it sent up a “huge plume of thick black smoke.”
With AP