Wealthy family dies in plane crash
Copake (USA) - A turboprop airplane has crashed in the US state of New York. Among the six passengers was a wealthy family of top doctors and MIT students.
The Mitsubishi MU2B aircraft crashed in a field in Copake shortly after midday on Saturday. All six occupants on board were killed.
The accident, which is already the third after a helicopter crash and the crash of a small plane , is making waves in the USA.
A successful and respected family was also on board, as the New York Post reports.
The victims are Karenna Groff, a former soccer player and NCAA Woman of the Year 2022, her boyfriend and MIT graduate James Santoro, Karenna's father and neuroscientist Dr. Michael Groff and her mother and urogynecologist Dr. Joy Saini.
According to relatives, the family was on their way to a birthday party when the twin-engine plane crashed almost 20 kilometers from Columbia County Airport. On approaching the airport, the pilot reportedly said that he had missed the approach and asked for a new flight path.
On the second attempt, however, a low altitude warning was reportedly issued, according to a member of the National Transportation Safety Board. Although no distress call was made by the plane, it fell from the sky shortly afterwards at a "high rate of descent", reports Daily Mail.
As it was Michael Groff's private plane, it can be assumed that the father of the family was at the controls of the aircraft. He was regarded as a conscientious pilot with years of practical experience.
Six passengers killed in plane crash: Father says goodbye to his son
Karenna was involved in women's soccer for years and studied biomedical engineering. She and James met while she was a student at MIT. James was a math major who played lacrosse for the school.
After graduation, the couple moved to Manhattan, where Karenna enrolled in medical school at New York University and James worked as an investment associate at the Silver Point credit union.
"They were a wonderful family. The world has lost a lot of very good people who could have done a lot of good for the world if they had the opportunity. We are all devastated," said James' father John Santoro.
"The 25 years we spent with James were the best years of our lives. The joy and love he brought us will be with us for a lifetime," Santoro said.