Death Toll In Long Island Small Plane Crash Rises To 2

The death toll in Sunday's small plane crash has risen to two -- the pilot and one of the passengers.

The pilot's name has not been released. The other victim has been identified as Jane Unhjem, 60, of Goshen, N.Y.; Her husband, Erik Unhjem, 61, remains in serious condition at Stony Brook University Medical Center. The couple was ejected from the plane and suffered serious burns.

Authorities say the plane crashed and burned on a residential street in Shirley, where neighbors used fire extinguishers and garden houses to try to put out the flames. Sadly, the pilot was trapped in the fuselage. No one on the ground was hurt; he managed to steer clear of homes, only clipping a tree and damaging a car.

Kathleen Bergen, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, says the front of the plane landed on Helene Avenue, the tail plunging into a construction trash bin nearby. The accident occurred around noon, just after take off from Brookhaven Calabro Airport, a mile north of the crash site.

Bergen identified the plane as a Socata TB10, also known as a Tobago, and is no longer being manufactured by the Paris-based, aerospace and defense company, Daher. She said the single-engine, propeller aircraft was registered to a man in Orlando, Fla.

Jeff Litwin, who lives a few hundred feet from the crash site, told the Staten Island Advance he was in his basement when he thought he heard thunder, which was then followed by a huge explosion. That's when he left the house to find out what was going on, adding that's when he saw a neighbor, "...trying to put out the fire with a garden hose, but it was too hot and he couldn't get to a person trapped inside," Litwin explained.

Federal investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board are due at the crash site Monday.