Aircraft crashes into Manhattan high-rise

NEW YORK — A small plane crashed into a 50-story luxury high-rise building on Manhattan's Upper East Side Wednesday, igniting a raging fire, killing at least two and initially trapping people on the floors above the point of impact.

New York Police Department officials said two were confirmed dead and there could be more fatalities.

The plane hit the building, located at 524 East 72nd Street, 20 floors above space occupied by the Hospital for Special Surgery.

The New York Fire Department told FOX News that there were people trapped above the point of impact, but the NYPD later said that all occupants located above the fire-ravaged floors had been evacuated.

By 3:30 p.m. ET, the blaze was reported to have been extinguished.

FBI spokeswoman Christine Monaco said there was no indication the crash — which happened five years and one month after Sept. 11, 2001 — was a terrorist attack, but officials "have been sent to the scene as a routine."

"The initial indication is that there is a terrible accident," said Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke. Fighter jets, however, were scrambled and were patrolling the skies above major cities as a precaution, according to Defense Department officials.



Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said that all three New York City-area airports were operating normally, but LaGuardia International Airport later reported gate hold and taxi delays of between 31 and 45 minutes in length that were increasing.

LaGuardia arrival traffic had airborne delays of 15 minutes or less, according to the airport.

The crash set off a raging fire that sent a pillar of gray smoke over the city, police said. Witnesses reported seeing a gigantic fireball come out of the building, according to authorities.

Flames could be seen shooting from windows on two or three upper floors of the 50-story building, near the East River. Burning debris rained down onto the street below.

"There's huge pieces of debris falling," said one witness who refused to give her full name. "There's so much falling now, I've got to get away."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg went to the site, where parts of the fuselage were falling to the ground in the immediate aftermath of the crash.

There were dozens of firefighters, emergency workers and other first responders on the scene.

FAA spokeswoman Diane Spitaliere said that a small, fixed-wing aircraft was involved, but there was very little other information immediately available. A helicopter would be expected in that area of the city; no other aircraft should be around that part of Manhattan, according to the FAA.

"Everyone was running down the street, kids were screaming and crying," Rich Behar, a New York City resident and former Time magazine reporter, told FOX News. "There was a lot of horror and terror when it hit," Behar added, saying the whole ordeal reminded him of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The building is a 50-story condominium tower built in 1986 and located nearby Sotheby's Auction House. It has 183 apartments, many of which sell for more than $1 million.

A spokesman for the National Transportation Security Board said that agency is organizing a team to send to New York to investigate the crash.


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Aircraft crashes into Manhattan high-rise

An aircraft crashed into a residential high-rise building on New York City’s Upper East Side this afternoon, igniting several apartments before pieces of the aircraft crashed to the ground, the police and witnesses said.
Police officials said two bodies were found on the ground, possibly passengers or crewmembers from the aircraft, but the authorities are just beginning their investigations. There are no reports of any injuries yet.

A Fire Department spokeswoman, Emily Rahimi, told The Associated Press that the aircraft struck the 20th floor of the building, 524 E. 72nd St., near York Avenue. However, television reports and witnessed said the aircraft hit closer to the 40th floor. That building and one next door were evacuated, police said.

The authorities have not said whether the aircraft was a small airplane or a helicopter.

Television views of the fire showed flames shooting out of four windows and smoke that streamed up into the sky, visible for miles. The building is a 50-story condominium that was built in 1986, The A.P. said, and has 183 apartments. Many of the lower floors held offices for doctors and other professionals.

The crash interrupted the routine of an urban afternoon that consisted of construction work inside the building, doctor’s appointments and came at the end of the school day for nearby students.

Kim Quarterman, 50, a doorman at 411 E. 70th St., said he head a noise about 2:45 p.m. "It sounded like a truck gearing down," he said. "You know how a truck sounds when it’s trying not to hit something? Then I saw a cloud of smoke."

After that, he picked his daughter, Chablis Quarterman, 13, at a nearby school.

"My dad and I tried to get as close as we could, but by then, all you could see was smoke," she said.

Samuel Klotman, 17, was on the roof of his school nearby with classmates when they saw the plane coming down.

“I could see through the buildings what I thought was a plane headed to this building,” he said. “Then there was a booming noise and a great fire gust shooting out.”

He said he and his classmates started text messaging and calling everyone they knew, “wondering what was happening,” and the school let everybody go home.



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NEW YORK A airplane crashed into a 50-story residential building on Manhattan's East Side on Wednesday, killing at least one person, the New York City Fire Department said.

Flames were shooting out from several windows midway up the luxury highrise in a residential neighborhood.

The Federal Aviation Administration described the plane as a "general aviation" fixed-wing aircraft flying under visual flight rules, meaning a pilot was flying by visual landmarks.

The plane hit the Belaire Condominiums, built in 1989 at 524 E. 72nd Street near the East River. More than 150 firefighters are on scene of a four-alarm fire in the building.

There was no word on casualties. NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) said it had put fighter aircraft into the air over numerous U.S. cities, though they said they had no reason to believe the event in New York was anything more than an accident, sources. It did the same thing after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"I have no idea where this thing (the plane) came from," said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which runs New York area airports.

"We haven't heard from any of our facilities that anything's missing." New York City government source told there are "no indications of terrorism."

The FAA placed a one-mile flight restriction around the site of the crash, but New York area airports were not affected.

It's unclear if the crash was a result of terrorism. A senior U.S. official in Washington said the administration was waiting for more information.

"The fire was raging out of two windows," witness Sarah Steiner told. "It looks like the plane just flew into someone's living room."

Steiner said fires were burning on the ground. "It looks like the plane just flew into someone's living room there."

"It looks as if the aircraft didn't go into the building but fell down," she said. "It may be part of the debris burning on the ground."

Video from the scene shows at least three apartments in the high-rise fully engulfed in flames.