HADLEY, Pa. -- A couple from Penn Hills were injured when their single-engine, two-seat airplane crashed in the treetops near a state park.

The crash about 2 p.m. yesterday in a wooded lot in Deer Creek Township sent Joseph Mazza and Mary Lou Mazza to St. Elizabeth's Health Center in Youngstown, Ohio.

Joseph Mazza was listed in critical condition and Mary Lou Mazza was listed in stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

Witnesses said the plane's engine cut out and the plane glided above the park's lake before it banked, turned and crashed into the trees.

"It went down, then it went up, then it wobbled," said 8-year-old Katelyn Zielinsky of Pittsburgh.

She was swimming with her family at a nearby campground when she saw the plane near Maurice K. Goddard State Park in northern Mercer County, about 70 miles north of Pittsburgh.

Ron Toth, an equipment operator for the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, was working in the park when he heard the crash.

"When I got off the radio, I could hear a lady yelling for help," said Toth of Cochranton, Crawford County. "I took off running. I kept asking where she was. She kept hollering. I found the seats on the ground before I looked up."

The plane was caught in the trees and never hit the ground. Joseph Mazza was thrown from the aircraft, but Mary Lou Mazza was trapped in the wreckage 65 to 85 feet above the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration wouldn't confirm who was flying.

The two were flying from the Inter County Airport in Irwin to the Port Meadville airport in Crawford County and were about 15 miles from Meadville when they crashed, FAA spokeswoman Arlene Murray said.

First Published: August 25, 2005, 4:00 a.m.