Man Says Crew Left Him Behind After Plane Crash

Film director Barry Sonnenfeld, the sole passenger on a business jet that crashed on landing at Van Nuys Airport last week, said the three crew members abandoned him and rushed to safety, even though fuel was leaking from the wreckage, according to a report released Friday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

No one was hurt when the jet veered off the runway Feb. 16 and smashed into five parked planes, destroying three of them.

Sonnenfeld, who directed “The Addams Family” in 1991 and “Men in Black” in 1997, was in New York and unavailable for comment Friday.

Sonnenfeld told investigators that “shortly after the aircraft came to a stop, the cockpit door flew open and the crew tried to unsuccessfully open the entry door. None of the crew members directed any attention to him,” the report said.

“At this point he noticed what he believed to be fuel running down the top of the wing and said, ‘I think we have a problem.’ He heard crew members say, ‘Oh God, we’ll go out the back,’ and, ‘Let’s go.’

“All three ran by him to the back of the aircraft and exited through the baggage door without directing any comments to him or offering any assistance. He went to the back of the aircraft and jumped to waiting firemen,” the report continued.

Mischa Hausserman, chief executive officer of Trans-Exec Air Services, which owns the plane, denied that the crew of the Gulfstream II fled without aiding their passenger.