- Most of the six passengers were part of the Groff family – a father, mother and siblings, plus the siblings’ partners.
- It’s unclear what led the airplane to crash into a field in remote Columbia County, NY.
- The family was headed to the Catskills for a family holiday celebration.
Six passengers, including two doctors and their adult children, were killed when a small plane that took off from Westchester County Airport plowed into a muddy field in Copake, Columbia County, on Saturday.
Where was the plane headed?
The plane left Westchester County on Saturday, bound for Columbia County Airport. The family on board was headed to the Catskills for a family holiday celebration, according to the Associated Press.
What happened before the plane crashed in Copake, NY?
A National Transportation Safety Board member, Todd Inman, said at a Monday, April 14, news briefing that the aircraft had already made one flight on Saturday: It took off at 9:30 a.m. from a Norwood Memorial — he did not specify the state, but there is such an airport in Massachusetts — and arrived at White Plains at 10:19 a.m.
The aircraft departed White Plains at 11:34 a.m. enroute to Columbia County Airport, in upstate New York.
Air traffic control personnel lost contact with the plane after the pilot indicated that the aircraft had missed its approach into its destination airport, the NTSB said Sunday. “No distress call” was issued before the plane crashed, officials said, despite air traffic control’s multiple attempts to warn the pilot of the plane’s dropping altitude.
Who was on the plane that crashed in Copake?
The plane, a Mitsubishi MU-2B, was carrying the following, according to a family statement Sunday:
- Dr. Michael Groff, a neuroscientist and Executive Medical Director of neurosciences at Rochester Regional Health in Rochester
- Dr. Joy Saini, a urogynecologist
- Their daughter, Karenna Groff, a former MIT soccer player named the 2022 NCAA woman of the year
- Their son Jared Groff, a 2022 graduate of Swarthmore College who worked as a paralegal at a New York City hedge fund
- Jared Groff’s partner, Alexia Couyutas Duarte, who planned to attend Harvard Law School this fall
- Karenna Groff’s boyfriend, James Santoro, a recent MIT graduate
All six passengers were removed from the scene; none were taken to the hospital for treatment.
The type of aircraft required additional training
Flying the type of aircraft, a Mitsubishi MU-2B, requires a pilot to have additional expertise beyond a standard private pilot’s license— which calls for more hours of training, Inman said.
NTSB certified that “this owner [of the plane] and operator — and we have confirmed the owner is the same person as the operator — that this person … went through that training and was fully certified to be on that aircraft and flying it,” said Inman.
The training was completed in October 2024 and the pilot was proficient, officials said.
The aircraft can fly at a “very high speed, close to jet speed. So it’s a very agile, high performance type of plane,” Inman added.
Inman said investigators will go back through every maintenance record and inspection for the aircraft.
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Mapping the Copake crash scene and more than 1,000 photos
NTSB had a drone team take in a full aerial view of the scene and on Monday, April 14, it competed mapping the wreckage location and surrounding areas.
The imagery “we believe will be very helpful for the post-impact inspection and evaluation,” Inman said. “We also conducted additional video and photo documentation of the scene and surrounding areas.”
Inman said the Columbia County Sheriff’s office provided NTSB with more than 1,000 post-impact images of what occurred and how the place was found.
Interviews begin of air traffic control personnel
NTSB has brought in a team of air-traffic control specialists who have started interviews at the Albany air traffic control tower.
“Those will go on for the next week,” Inman said. “We will be interviewing every of the controllers that were involved int he entire flight.”
Investigators have recovered equipment from the aircraft
A number of pieces of equipment have been pulled from the plane.
“Some of them are damaged; none are in pristine state due to the force of the impact, but we do believe they may be helpful,” Inman said, once they are brought to a laboratory.
Investigators also secured multiple memory cards, he added, that are being sent right away to Washington, D.C. laboratories for experts to see what additional data they provide.
Recovery experts have arrived to work to extract the aircraft, which Inman said is anticipated to conclude by the evening of April 15, at which point the wreckage will all be moved to a Massachusetts facility. Part of the NTSB team will relocate there “to do a more thorough examination of the the aircraft itself,” Inman said. The plane’s engines will ultimately transferred to be torn down in Phoenix, Arizona.
“Our objective is not just to find out what happened, but why it happened so we can make recommendations so this does not happen again,” Inman said.
What were weather conditions near Copake crash site?
The crash site is 10 miles from the airport so there can be a slight variance in weather readings.
“What we can say is weather was at that time what we consider to be deteriorating,” Inman said. National Weather Service data show that it was overcast in that area of New York between 11:54 a.m. and 1:54 p.m.
