Weather was deteriorating when private plane crashed in upstate NY, killing all 6 on board: NTSB
The weather was deteriorating when a small private plane crashed in a muddy field in upstate New York over the weekend, killing all six people on board, officials said.
Weather conditions were worsening, and the temperature was only just above freezing at the Columbia County Airport Saturday afternoon when the Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 crashed in Copake, National Transportation Safety Board Member Todd Inman said .
The plane was being flown under instrument flight rules — which are used in poor visibility conditions, as opposed to visual flight rules — but it was too soon to say if reduced visibility from weather conditions was to blame for the wreck, officials said.
Albert Nixon, the NTSB’s lead investigator on the case, said the agency is working with the National Weather Service to determine the full weather conditions near the airport that day.
According to officials, the plane missed its approach at the airport and requested instructions to make another approach when air traffic control radar “indicated a low altitude issue.”
“The (air traffic controller) attempted to relay this low altitude alert to the pilot and also tried to contact him three additional times,” Nixon said. “Unfortunately, he was unsuccessful.”
It was not immediately clear whether the weather conditions at the airport were the same as they were at the site of the crash, about 10 miles away.
Inman noted that planes require recertification after upgrades as the doomed plane had been sold in the last year and had an updated avionics system.
“We’re digging into that further,” he said.
The type of plane involved also required eight to 10 hours of additional training beyond a private pilot’s license, which the pilot had received, Inman said.
All six people aboard the plane — from a family of accomplished doctors and athletes — were killed in the crash.
The victims include neuroscientist father Michael Groff, urologist mother Joy Saini, their MIT-grad daughter Karenna and her boyfriend, James Sontoro, their son, Jared Groff, and his partner, Alexia Couyutas Duarte.
The couple’s third child, daughter Anika, was not on the plane.
Dr. Groff was an experienced pilot. The family departed from a White Plains airport Saturday morning and were due to land at the Columbia County Airport around noon, but the plane missed its approach.
The NTSB is investigating the accident.
