The pilot killed in a fiery plane crash on a residential street in Woodbridge Tuesday was a renowned cardiologist who was flying to New York City to give a lecture, according to the manager of Linden Airport.

Michael Schloss, 74, was the person behind the controls of the craft that crashed in a Colonia neighborhood at about 11 a.m., Linden Airport Manager Paul Dudley said.

Dudley knew Schloss for over 30 years and described him as an outgoing, generous man who loved to fly and did it “exponentially well.” A little over 10 years ago, Schloss made an emergency landing in Linden in the same type of plane.

Officials said earlier the plane, a Cessna 414, was headed from Loudoun County, Va. to Linden when the twin-engine plane fell out of the air less than four miles from its destination, igniting a blaze that burned multiple houses. Federal crash investigator, who arrived at the crash scene shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday, said the pilot did not make any distress calls.

“He was a long-term, highly-accomplished pilot, which means something must have happened here... something must have happened to overwhelm him,” Dudley said. He wondered if there was a mechanical failure or a medical issue, and noted that the weather at the time was awful with misting rain and low clouds.

He said Schloss was in communication with Newark Air Traffic Control while flying, but when he stopped communicating, controllers called Linden Airport to see if he had landed. Dudley said he called Schloss’ wife, Julie, in Virginia, to ask where he was.

“She already knew something was up,” Dudley said. “She said, ‘He’s supposed to be there with you.’”

He said Schloss had lived and worked in New York City for decades but had mostly relocated to Virginia after he fell in love with his now-wife, who lived there. He said Schloss was mostly retired but flew in to Linden often to lecture or consult with doctors on cases in New York City.

“It’s a great loss to medicine, aviation and humanity,” Dudley said. “He died doing what he loved.”

There’s still no word on what caused the plane to strike the back of a house on Berkley Avenue.

Neighbors described a thud and then what sounded like an explosion as the plane and house ignited. Flames and black smoke stretched high into the air and the fire spread to at least one other home before it was extinguished nearly three hours later.

Woodbridge Mayor John McCormac said Tuesday afternoon that the plane remained lodged in the roof of the destroyed house. No one was home at the time of the crash, he said, and a woman in another house partially burned by the fire escaped unharmed.

In 2008, Schloss was able to land a plane at the same airport after he couldn’t put his plane’s landing gear down in time, according to a Star-Ledger article. He made a “gear up” landing of the same type of aircraft, a twin-engine Cessna 414, and skidded on its underbelly along the runway, Linden police said at the time.

Fellow Pilot Tom Madden, of Aberdeen, who also flew out of Linden Airport, described Schloss as a “top shelf” pilot.

At the crash scene Tuesday, Madden said he once helped work on the brakes to Schloss’s Skyraider, a vintage fighter plane that first saw combat in the Korean War. The two would talk planes at the Linden airport around 2005, but Madden said he lost contact with him after he retired.

Madden said Schloss would impress spectators with his maneuvers at air shows all over New Jersey.

“He would take the Skyraider to air shows and come over and do a barrel roll,” Madden said. “We would go, 'Oh, there goes Schloss’ and we would go see him when he lands.”

Staff writers Sophie Nieto-Munoz, Jenna Wise and Blake Nelson contributed to this story.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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