TETERBORO, N.J. (AP) – A corporate jet skidded off a runway Wednesday on takeoff and hurtled across a six-lane highway during the morning rush hour, smashing into two cars and punching through the wall of a warehouse. About 20 people were taken to the hospital, including two injured in their cars.

Crew members and passengers walked or crawled from the burning wreckage after the crash at Teterboro Airport, a small airport about 12 miles from midtown Manhattan that caters to executive jets.

“I think everybody at this point is extremely lucky and fortunate,” said acting Gov. Richard J. Codey.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. The Bombardier Challenger CL-600 was carrying investment bankers from several companies to Chicago, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters. He had no other details.

All 11 people on the plane were taken to the hospital; the most seriously hurt among them was one of the pilots, who had a broken leg. One of those injured in a car was in critical condition. Five firefighters were taken to the hospital with minor injuries, and a man in the warehouse was also hurt.

“The pilot said he dragged himself out,” witness Robert Sosa told WNBC-TV.

Wheel tracks, plainly visible in snow, went sraight off the end of the runway, through a fence and a snowbank, and then across U.S. 46.

A similar plane, a Canadair CL-601 Challenger, crashed in December in Colorado while trying to take off, killing a son of NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol and two others.

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