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WALL TOWNSHIP — A severe thunderstorm and a tornado left scattered damage, including downed trees, utility poles and roofs in Wall Township as well as Manasquan, Sea Girt and other Monmouth County communities on Saturday night.
Wall Township Emergency Services responded to more than 100 calls for service — the most serious occurring at Monmouth Executive Airport, where police said a twin engine Cessna Citation X jet ran off the runway while landing at 7:38 p.m. – a mere four minutes before the tornado officially touched down in nearby Sea Girt.
“The weather rolled in so quickly; they [the pilots] had no idea,” said Rita Spader, executive director of airport operations and business development at Monmouth Executive Airport Jet Center.
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She said the landing was performed based on information received from the jet’s instrument landing system [ILS], a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather, according to the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA].
According to Ms. Spader, the co-pilots were flying from Nashville, Tennessee, and were not alerted of the Saturday tornado warning. The tornado touched down at the National Guard Training Center in Sea Girt at 7:42 p.m. with peak winds of 110 to 120 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.
The co-pilots landed the aircraft on Runway 32, located at the southern corner of the airport, at approximately 5,000 feet of a 7,500-foot runway. The jet lost control upon entering a grass median, and came to rest on its underside of the taxiway, approximately 1,200 feet from its initial landing point on the runway, according to Ms. Spader.
Ms. Spader said that the aircraft ripped up some of the taxiway upon landing despite “the pilot [keeping] control of the airplane as much as he could.”
“It’s unbelievable they didn’t flip over once the wing was smashed,” said Ms. Spader.
The two co-pilots aboard the Cessna sustained no injuries despite significant damage to the aircraft.
Aftermath
After noticing that the aircraft did not enter its designated terminal within three minutes of landing, airport line staff raced to the scene of the crash to find the two pilots sitting beside the damaged aircraft in noticeable shock.
Airport line manager Wes LeBar spoke with the pilots an hour later, sharing that one pilot said he was in “‘Such shock, I can’t believe how far we went – I just closed my eyes and prayed.’”
The co-pilots work for Discovery Jets, the charter company who owns the aircraft. The Cessna jet was scheduled to transport a family to the island of St. Croix on Sunday.
Members of Wall Township’s Glendola Fire Company, with assistance from Monmouth County Hazmat, were able to isolate the fuel from the aircraft and secure the scene until Sunday morning, according to the police department.
Emergency crews returned to the airport Sunday morning to begin cleanup. A private towing and recovery company, Certified towing and crane, removed the plane and cleared all field debris. Spilled fuel was mitigated.
“[This] is another example of our personnel operating at a unique emergency under one unified command structure resulting in a successful outcome,” said the Wall police department.
The Cessna Citation X has been moved to a secure location for further evaluation by the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA]. Monmouth County Executive Airport is currently working with Wall police, Glendola Fire Company, the FAA and National Transportation Safety Board [NTSB] to complete the investigation. The airport has since resumed regular operations.
“I am so grateful and thankful that these pilots are getting back home to their families,” said Ms. Spader.
Development Concerns
The Saturday night crash amplified the airport’s safety concerns for a proposed six warehouse development by local developer ASP Wall LLC.
The developer, whose application was originally denied by the township planning board, seeks to build six warehouses on a 43-acre plot located at 5165 Belmar Blvd. [lot 65], currently in the borough’s GI-5 General Industrial District, where warehouses are a conditional use. The proposed development would lie Northwest of the airport’s runway centerline, the same location where the Cessina jet skidded into a grassy field, which could potentially be replaced with buildings.
Four of the six proposed warehouses lie within a Runway Protection Zone [RPZ], which the Federal Aviation Administration [FAA] defines as a trapezoidal area “off the end of the runway end that serves to enhance the protection of people and property on the ground” in the event an aircraft lands or crashes beyond the runway end. Currently, the FAA can only enforce the height of structures within the RPZ; not the structures themselves.
According to a letter dated Oct. 23, 2021, from the FAA to ASP Wall LLC, “Structures, which will result in the congregation of people within an RPZ, are strongly discouraged in the interest of protecting people and property on the ground.” The FAA also stated “the inadvisability of the project from the standpoint of safety to personnel and property.”
Ms. Spader echoed the FAA’s concerns, stating “The airport is presently objecting to a local developer’s plan to build six warehouse facilities directly in line with the centerline of the runway. If those warehouses are built and there is an undershoot or overshoot accident, there will be a much greater risk of injury to those in the plane and those on the ground.”
“Fortunately there were no injuries [Saturday] night due to the fact that the aircraft had plenty of room when confronted by an unexpected weather event,” said Ms. Spader. “Because of the length of our runway [7,500 feet], he [the pilot] had room to slide. [However], he was nearing the end of the runway. If it was a little bit further, that airplane would have slid right into their [the developer’s] field,” she said.
According to air safety expert John J. Goglia of John J. Goglia and Associates, “85 percent of the flights to take off from the Monmouth County Executive airport take off in the direction of ASP Wall LLC, and only 15 percent go the other way. In the roughly 70 years of the airport’s existence, there have only been two [now three] accidents, both of which were overrun or undershoot accidents,” said Mr. Goglia at a planning board meeting last November.
Mr. Goglia also cited recommendations from the FAA and New Jersey Department of Transportation [NJDOT] stating their opposition to the development, which would “endanger plane and warehouse occupants in the event of under or overshoot accidents.”
While the FAA can exercise control over how an airport like the Monmouth County Executive Jet Center handles development within the RPZ, it legally cannot make the same decisions for a private developer like ASP Wall LLC.
“We will fight anything like that for safety reasons,” said Ms. Spader.
The developer’s most recent application, which was denied by the NJDOT, has since filed an appeal, as the latest design plans include reduced building height elevations per the FAA’s recommendation.
Matthew Dolan, attorney representing Wall Herald Corp, the owner of the airport, stated that the crash further emphasized the airport’s objection to the proposed development, which he deemed “inherently unsafe… to persons or property.”
The planning board will hear ASP Wall LLC’s revised application at their meeting on May 22, according to Mr. Dolan.
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