November 13, 2001	Tuesday	Shaba’an 26, 1422

NEW YORK, Nov 12: Frightened witnesses to the New York plane crash described a fiery scene that sparked fear in the wake of the Sep 11 strikes.

David Saliro told CNN he was crossing a bridge in the Queens area of New York City with his brother when he saw a plane flying very low overhead.

“We looked up, we saw the plane with fire coming out of the side,” he said, adding that he saw something “fly off the plane.”

“It flew right over us ... it veered to the left and then veered back to the right,” he said, two months after two commericial jets were turned into flying bombs by terrorists who destroyed the city’s landmark World Trade Center, killing thousands of people.

Phyllis Paul, who lives near the crash site told the network that she heard the plane flying low over her home.

“Because of what happened on September 11, it gave me a chill,” she said. Paul said that she looked out and saw an explosion toward the front of her house.

Since her 10-year-old son was home from school for the Veteran’s Day holiday, she said she got in her car and left the city with him.

“I’m at my parents home because I feared for my life and my son’s life,” she said.

Earlier Monday, an American Airlines Airbus-300 packed with 246 passengers and nine crew slammed into into a residential area in the Queens section of the city shortly after taking off from John F. Kennedy International Airport.

The jet was en route to Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, when it crashed, Federal Aviation Administration officials said.

An FAA spokesman said there was “no indication of a terrorist act,” but that “all options are open at this time.”

An unnamed woman choked back tears as she told CNN of a “huge fireball” after the crash.

“I saw the plane right behind the house, actually it was a huge, loud sound,” she said. “It was like a bomb exploding.”

“I think it just hit exactly the house behind me and most of it exploded into pieces and you know it just fell on the areas of the neighborhood,” she said.

Emergency officials said there were several crash sites on the ground, with parts of plane falling off the plane before it hit, according to media reports.

One of those pieces hit the house next to Ron Hollander’s home, setting it on fire.—AFP