Small Plane Crashes Into an Unoccupied Commercial Building

BOHEMIA, N.Y.  -- A small plane practicing landings crashed into an unoccupied commercial building Saturday and burst into flames, injuring a student pilot and a flight instructor, police said.

The pilot and the instructor were hospitalized after the crash, which destroyed the plane, a Beechcraft Musketeer, but caused only light damage to structures on the ground. The pilot's injuries were considered serious, the Suffolk County Police Department said.

The crash happened just after 3 p.m. in Bohemia, about a half mile from a runway at Long Island MacArthur Airport, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters.

The owner of the plane was identified as David Myron Rowe, of Mount Sinai, N.Y., and was likely at the controls when the plane crashed, authorities said.

The instructor was identified as David Jensen, a trainer for Mid Island Air Service Inc., a Long Island flight school.

Jensen's biography on the company's website said he has 18 years of flight experience. The website lists Myron Rowe as a 2009 student of the flight school.

A person who answered the phone Saturday at the company's MacArthur Airport office said he could not discuss any details about the crash or confirm whether Rowe or Jensen were associated with the flight school. He declined to give his name.

The fliers had been practicing "touch-and-go" landings, in which the pilot immediately takes off after his wheels touch the tarmac, Peters said.

"The plane is completely disintegrated. There's nothing left," said Michael Ruggiero, who owns a furniture factory near the crash site. "It's a pile of rubble, and all I can see is the tail of the plane."

He said the single-story manufacturing building hit by the plane appeared to have suffered "mostly broken windows." The building was unoccupied, police said.