New Jersey Plane Crashes Into Busy Highway And Kills Investment Banker And His Family

Five Killed After Plane Crashes Into Busy New Jersey Highway

An investment banker, his wife and their two children were killed when their small plane crashed on a major New York-area highway.

Jeffrey Buckalew, 45, a managing director at New York investment banking firm Greenhill & Co., is wife, Corinne and their two children all died.

Rakesh Chawla, also a managing director at the firm, also lost his life.

No one on the ground was injured, although wreckage was scattered across half a mile of the Interstate 287 in northern New Jersey.

The crash closed both sides of the highway for several hours, before several lanes were reopened in time for the evening rush hour on Tuesday.

According to the National Transportation Safety, Mr Buckalew, who owned and was piloting the single engine plane, had mentioned ice in a seven-second call to an air traffic controller, shortly before the accident.

Eyewitness Sue Behende said: “I saw the plane taking a nosedive and then a big fireball,” the Telegraph reported.

“I thought any second they were going to pull up. But then the wing came off and they went straight down.”

Children Meriwether and Jackson Buckalew were described as “gorgeous” by a neighbour of the family.

The Socata TBM-700 aircraft was flying from New Jersey’s Teterboro Airport to Atlanta for a family visit.

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