A private plane carrying six people crashed on Saturday in an open field in upstate New York, and everyone was killed on board, authorities say.
Among those on board was former Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) football player Karenna Groff celebrating her parents and sibling Karenna Groff, according to a family statement.
The US National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) said the family was traveling to celebrate the holiday when the crash occurred.
Videos from the final seconds of the flight staff obtained showed the aircraft was unharmed before it hit the ground with a high descent rate, the NTSB said.
A joint family statement identified the victims as Karenna Groff, parents Dr. Michael Groff and Dr. Joy Sani, brother Jared Groff and his partner Alexia Couutas Duarte, and Karenna's partner James Santoro.
“They were a great family,” James' father, John Santoro, told The Associated Press.
“The world has lost many very good people who were going to do a lot of good things for the world if they had the opportunity. We are all personally devastated.”
Former athlete Karenna was named the Women of the Year by the National College Athletics Association (NCAA) in 2022, her senior year.
She was a graduate of MIT where she met James and was enrolled in medical school at New York University (NYU), her family said.
Her parents were both prominent doctors, but her brother, Jared, worked as a paralegal.
“Karenna has demonstrated extraordinary skills and unwavering passion for the care of patients and the mission of our institution. We remember her for her warmth, grace, kindness, her outstanding achievements and the pure joy she has brought to our community,” a NYU spokesman said.
In a New York Times article, the plane pilot was identified as Karenna's father, Dr. Groff. No reports of him flying a crashed plane have been publicly confirmed by his family or authorities.
At a press conference on Sunday, NTSB official Todd Inman said the Mitsubishi mu-2b, a muddy agricultural twin engine near Claryville in New York, is “compressed, buckled and embedded in the terrain.”
A crash fell at noon as the family headed to Columbia County Airport.
Inman added that Air Traffic Control has tried to contact pilots several times but has never received a response or a call for pain.
The pilots flew under instrument flight rules rather than visual flight rules, he said, adding that it was too early to determine whether a drop in visibility from weather conditions was a factor.
Inman said the plane has an upgraded cockpit with new technology certified to Federal Aviation Administration standards.
An investigation is underway, and the NTSB final report determines the possible causes of crashes 12-24 months later.
This comes days after six people, including a family of Spanish tourists, died in a helicopter crash in New York.
