Skydiving plane goes off runway at Cross Keys Airport in Williamstown, New Jersey; 5 of 15 passengers injured

At least five of the 15 people on board a skydiving aircraft were injured after the small plane went off the runway at Cross Keys Airport in Williamstown, New Jersey, on Wednesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the small plane, a Cessna 208B, went off the runway at the Gloucester County airport on North Tuckahoe Road at around 5:15 p.m. Eastern Time. The FAA is investigating the incident. 

The five people injured are being taken to Cooper University Hospital in Camden, New Jersey, a spokesperson for the hospital said. 

Gloucester County Office of Emergency Management called the crash a “mass casualty incident” in a Facebook post just after 6 p.m.

The airport is privately owned and serves many private passenger planes, and it’s also a popular place to take skydiving lessons. 

The small plane was involved in an incident in July 2023 at an airport in Suffolk, Virginia. 

In the National Transportation Safety Board’s final report from the 2023 incident, the federal agency said the pilot was returning from her fifth skydive of the day when aircraft went off the runway during the landing. 

As the plane landed in Virginia, the “the flare seemed insufficient,” and the nose landing gear collapsed. The plane then went off the runway and came to rest in the grass. The aircraft sustained substantial damage to the engine mounts during the incident, according to the NTSB. The federal agency said the pilot did not report any mechanical malfunctions or failures with the plane that would have “precluded normal operation.”

The NTSB determined the “pilot’s inadequate landing flare” resulted in the crash in 2023.

Gloucester County OEM is asking people to avoid the area.

This is a developing story and will be updated.