| The Irvington Water Rescue Team and fireboat responded to a plane crash in the Hudson River this afternoon. The department was dispatched along with the US Coast Guard, Yonkers Fire, Yonkers Police, NYPD, Piermont Fire and Nyack fire. Upon Irvington's arrival the 2 occupants had already been rescued and our units stood by until released by the US Coast Guard and Yonkers a few minutes later.
By MELISSA KLEIN AND SHAWN COHEN
mklein@thejournalnews.com
THE JOURNAL NEWS
(Original publication: January 3, 2006)
YONKERS Rescue divers plucked a barely conscious New Jersey flight instructor and his co-pilot from the frigid waters of the Hudson River yesterday after their single-engine plane crashed off the Yonkers City Pier.
"Engine out!" they exclaimed over their radio just before the crash. "We're going into the water!"
The instructor, 42-year-old John Eberle of Marlton, N.J., and his co-pilot, 44-year-old Mark Sorey of Burlington, N.J., were taken by helicopter to Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx, where they were treated for hypothermia. Both were listed in fair condition last night.
Eberle had been struggling in the 40-degree water for 15 to 20 minutes when New York City Police Department divers approached him.
"I was telling him to keep kicking his feet to stay afloat," said Liam Devine, one of the two divers who rescued Eberle.
The other NYPD diver, John Mortimer, said Eberle appeared pale and "was almost to the point of unconsciousness."
Sorey was rescued by Coast Guard divers, who also jumped into the river from a hovering rescue helicopter. Both men were lifted to safety by basket.
Eberle and Sorey had taken off in the small Piper Warrior yesterday morning from South Jersey Regional Airport in Mount Holly, N.J. Shortly after 11 a.m., they made a routine request to air traffic controllers for permission to fly low in a corridor over the Hudson River. They were heading south over the river on their way to a New Jersey airport to do "touch-and-goes" or practice takeoffs and landings when the engine quit, said Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Sorey, believed to also be a licensed pilot, was at the controls of the plane, but Eberle, the instructor, immediately took over.
A witness to the crash, Jose Lezama of Yonkers, said the plane appeared to be flying normally over the river. Lezama, who had been taking a walk on the riverfront, said when he saw the aircraft come down, he thought perhaps it was a seaplane. Then he saw the pilot and passenger standing on the wrecked plane, waving their arms for help. He watched as the plane started to sink, nose first.
Yonkers police began receiving calls at 11:49 a.m. that a plane was down in the river, south of the City Pier at the end of Main Street. The Yonkers Police Department has a marine unit that usually is docked about a block north of the pier, but it is not used during the winter, said Yonkers Police Capt. Frank Messar of the emergency services unit.
Yonkers police, following their standard practice, called the New York City Police Department aviation unit and the U.S. Coast Guard for assistance.
Helicopters from each agency arrived 10 to 12 minutes later, Messar said.
"They were here very fast," Messar said. "The divers were in the water very fast. And I think survival depends upon the speed with which they got up here and got in the water."
The victims were pulled from the water at 12:13 p.m., New York City police said. The water's temperature would have made it impossible for them to survive for more than about an hour, they said.
The plane went down in a channel 45 to 50 feet deep, Messar said. It remained under water last night.
The aircraft, which was manufactured in 1977, was registered to Trinity Aviation in Burlington Township, N.J., according to FAA records. There was no telephone listing for Trinity Aviation.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.
Mortimer and Devine, who saved the pilot, were examined at Jacobi yesterday but suffered no injuries.
After leaving the hospital, they recalled that it was just more than a week ago that they tried to save two Jersey City police officers whose vehicle went off the Lincoln Highway Bridge on Christmas night.
The officers did not survive.
"This obviously has a better ending," Devine said. |
