Fatal airplane crash on Connecticut-New York border falsely identified as drone crash in New Jersey

Reports of unidentified drones hovering over New Jersey and other states have sent online rumor mills and conspiracy theories flying.

"Drone crashed, everything revealed," text on a Dec. 14 Instagram video claimed. The nighttime video showed a brightly lit aircraft strewn on a grassy patch next to a highway. Emergency service vehicle lights flashed as people looked over the crash scene. 

The post’s caption said: "This is 100% American drones and it’s just now been proven. They’re running emergency test flying as a simulation to see what they can do in the event that they need to create some sort of false flag."

A Dec. 16 Facebook post shared video of the crash with the caption: "Drone Crashes!! #story #drone #newjersey #ufo #uap #storytime" suggesting the video is from an incident in New Jersey.

The Instagram and Facebook videos were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Threads and Instagram.)

But these claims are wrong on two counts: It is not a drone crash and the incident didn’t occur in New Jersey.

The video shows the wreckage of a fatal Dec. 12 plane crash near Westchester County Airport in New York. The crash blocked traffic on I-684 at the New York-Connecticut border and "also caused an aviation gas spill," New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said Dec. 12. 

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The plane, a single-engine Tecnam P-2008, crashed at around 7:15 p.m. after the pilot reported engine issues, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Two people were on board. Yankele Friedman, aka Yakov Friedman, a 32-year-old flight instructor, died and Kalmen Goldberger, 26, who was the plane’s pilot, was injured, Connecticut State Police said.

The National Transportation Safety Board recorded the crash as happening in Greenwich, Connecticut. "The preliminary information we have is that the plane was traveling from Linden, New Jersey, when one of the pilots reported engine failure," Sarah Taylor Sulick, a National Transportation Safety Board spokesperson said. "The plane then crashed on I-684 while attempting to land at the Westchester County Airport."

A preliminary report will be available within 30 days of the crash and a full report about the cause of the crash could take up to two years, the NTSB said.

Civilian drones are typically smaller than manned airplanes, but the Italian-made Tecnam P-2008 is a particularly small aircraft at 22.87 feet long and is designed to seat no more than two people, according to its manufacturer’s specifications. 

Drone sightings across New Jersey and other Northeast states have caused panic, but federal officials said Dec. 16 that they do not pose a threat. According to officials, the sightings reported included lawful commercial drones, hobbyist drones, helicopters and stars mistakenly identified as drones. 

"We have not identified anything anomalous and do not assess the activity to date to present a national security or public safety risk over the civilian airspace in New Jersey or other states in the northeast," a joint statement by the FBI, FAA and the departments of Homeland Security and Defense said.

We rate the claim that this video shows a drone crash in New Jersey False.