N.J. Neighborhood College President Jerry Davis announced the crash to students at a basketball game less than two hours after the wreckage was found. The news stunned the private liberal arts college, where students attend for free in exchange for working on the campus. Most students work here, and we all know each other better. It makes for more of a sense of loss. Founded in 1906, the college draws many of its 1,500 students from Midwestern farms or families who have worked overseas as missionaries.
Students maintain classrooms, raise food on campus and run the school's fire department and airport.
I thought it was a natural gas explosion. A man and two women aboard the plane were killed instantly, while a badly burned man died about four hours later at a hospital. Three people on the ground also suffered minor injuries. The twin-engine plane left from Hanover County, Va., and was on an approach to Teterboro Airport, across the Hudson River from New York City, said Jim Peters, an FAA spokesman. The crew was talking with air traffic controllers when it crashed about two miles from the airport.