Plane crash in S.J.: “It was like God landed it”

A 70-year-old pilot and his 67-year-old passenger escaped serious injury when their small plane ran out of fuel and crashed into the front lawn of a house in South Jersey last night, police said.

Ronald C. Miller, of Cinnaminson, was flying his ultralight aircraft back to the Flying W Airport in Medford after spending the day at the Shore.

Miller glanced at his fuel gauge at 7:30 and noticed it was half-full. But minutes later, it dropped to quarter tank. Then nothing.

Miller, a pilot for 45 years, tried to glide to the nearest landing strip, the Camden County Airport in Berlin, but didn't have the altitude to reach it.

Less than 600 yards from the airport, the home-built experimental aircraft crashed through trees, ripped through telephone wires, and lost a wing before coming to a very bumpy landing on a front lawn in the 700 block of Watsontown-New Freedom Road in Winslow Township, police said.

"I heard an awful noise and then a bang," said Florence Craig, who was surprised her property became a temporary landing strip for the evening. "He tried to land in the field out back, but he hit the maple tree at the corner and it sheered his wing."

Nurse Patty Craig, who lives behind her mother-in-law's house, was startled by the commotion and rushed to her window.

"I said, 'Oh my God! there's a plane on the lawn!' So I quick ran out, I see this sweet lady trying to get out of the plane," Patty Craig said. "I grabbed her arm and sat her down in a lawn chair."

The woman, passenger Lenora Layton, had been scraped up and bruised, she said, but was otherwise uninjured. The pilot was still seated in the aircraft.

"I helped him out of the plane like he was on a kiddie ride," she said.

Both Miller and Layton declined her offers to them to a hospital. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the crash.

Patty Craig marvelled how Miller and Layton had escaped serious injuries.

"The plane swept between two full grown trees," she said. "The cabin was unscathed, not a scratch on it.

"It was like God landed it," she said.