Distressed Small Plane Crashes on New York Road; 2 Hurt

A small plane that had issued a distress call and was trying to land on an upstate New York roadway crashed Sunday afternoon, seriously injuring two women aboard, authorities said.

Firefighters pulled the women from the downed aircraft after the roadway crash was reported to police in Oswego County, on the southeastern shore of Lake Ontario, around 3:30 p.m.

The women were taken to a hospital in nearby Syracuse, one by ambulance, the other by helicopter.

A nursing supervisor at the hospital said she was unable to give any information on the women until their identities were released.

The women’s Piper Cherokee plane had been trying to land on County Route 45 in Palermo, a town of about 4,000 residents, a county dispatch supervisor said. Syracuse Hancock International Airport, about 25 miles away, had received a distress call from the plane shortly before it crashed.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which has an office in the control tower at the airport, did not immediately return a telephone message from The Associated Press seeking comment.