4 LIers seriously hurt after plane crashes on lawn

From the backseat of the Cessna 172, Robert Kroll could tell something was going wrong.

Pilot Robert Schmidt had been wrestling with the single-engine plane since its takeoff about 9:40 Thursday night.

Now, Schmidt announced to the others on board that he feared the worst, Kroll said.

"Guys, we're going in," Kroll said he remembered Schmidt saying.

Kroll, Schmidt and two other Long Island men were seriously injured when the plane slammed into a lawn in an upstate subdivision about a quarter-mile from Wallkill AirPark-Kolbelt Airport.

"It was a miracle he got the plane on the ground," said Kroll, who was in intensive care at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie on Friday.

"We'd all be dead if he didn't do what he did," Kroll said.

Kroll said Schmidt threaded the trees to open land. The plane broke apart upon hitting the ground.

"He swung that plane around and dropped it right in that guy's backyard," said Kroll, who lives in West Sayville. "The motor - it just wasn't producing power."

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the incident.

All four remained hospitalized Friday, two listed in critical condition.

Kroll said Schmidt, who lives in Bay Shore, had flown his friends from Brookhaven Calabro Airport in Shirley to the Wallkill airport to have dinner at Nu - CAVU, an airport restaurant. Kroll said the four were returning to Calabro when the crash occurred.

"It was just four friends getting together and going somewhere to have a bite to eat together," Kroll said.

Carmella Vitolo owns Nu - CAVU with her husband, Michael. She waited on the men Thursday night before the crash.

"We always joke around," Vitolo said of Schmidt, someone she described as a regular. "He joked about giving me flying lessons. It's a shame."

Schmidt was listed Friday in critical but stable condition at Westchester Medical Center with fractures to his face and limbs, State Police said.

Another passenger, Anthony Errera, 31, of Baldwin, who was sitting in front with Schmidt, was in critical but stable condition at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow.

John Brienza, 51, of Farmingdale, who was sitting next to Kroll, was hospitalized in the trauma unit at Westchester Medical Center.

The plane landed in Wayne Dunnigan's yard. He didn't hear the crash but heard his dog growling and looked outside and found a man lying on his stoop, talking on a cell phone.

"It could have been a lot worse," Dunnigan said. "There was no fire. It didn't hit the house. It was a lucky night for us."

Kroll said he believed the Cessna's left wing clipped a tree, which sent the plane careening into the ground.

The FAA said Schmidt was operating under visual flight rules and didn't need to file a flight plan.

The Wallkill airport is between Modena and Plattekill, next to the New York State Thruway and south of New Paltz. The site is about 80 miles north of New York City.

Jim Falbo, an Brookhaven airport maintenance mechanic, said that Schmidt's plane had taken off at 6:54 p.m. Schmidt came "in and out" of the airport all the time, he said.

With Jennifer Gundersen