June 23, 2001 - Pilot Killed When Plane Crashes in Greenwich - NY Times

A pilot was killed yesterday when his plane crashed in Greenwich, Conn., after an aborted landing attempt.

The pilot, Vernn Haglund, 63, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was flying in a six-seat private plane from Atlantic City to Westchester County Airport, on the Connecticut border. Mr. Haglund told air traffic controllers that he was having trouble with a directional instrument as he approached the airport, shortly before 9 a.m., in heavy fog, said Renee Johns, a spokeswoman for the airport.
''He was unable to see anything, and unable to land,'' she said. ''So he executed a missed approach. Obviously, after that he became disoriented.''

The plane crashed a few minutes later in a wooded area about half a mile away.
Frank Nestor, a lawyer who lives close to the crash site, said that he had been alerted by unusually loud plane noise above his house. Hidden by clouds, the plane circled very low for several minutes before crashing, he said.

''I didn't see it but I heard the sound of breaking wood or the fuselage of the plane coming apart, followed by an explosion and flames, which I could see about 200 feet from the house through the trees,'' Mr. Nestor said, adding that he ran toward the site, but could not get very close because of the flames.

Henry Stanton, the deputy commissioner of transportation for Westchester County, said the weather conditions were so bad that only one other plane had landed at the airport in the morning.

''To all practical purposes, the airport was closed,'' he said. ''The cloud ceiling was zero and the fog was right at ground level. But in these cases it's always the pilot's decision'' whether to land.

The pilot, a salesman, was on a business trip, Chief Peter J. Robbins of the Greenwich Police Department said. Mr. Haglung left Florida on Monday, with a stop in Atlantic City. The plane was registered to Heber Inc., of Fort Lauderdale.

No one on the ground was injured. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were investigating the crash. The medical examiner's office said an autopsy was planned today.

Airport officials said there was no record of the plane having landed at the Westchester airport before.

The single-engine Piper Saratoga flown by Mr. Haglund was an older version of the plane that John F. Kennedy Jr. was flying when he crashed off Martha's Vineyard and was killed, along with his wife and sister-in-law, in July 1999.