Investigators outline final moments of plane crash that killed former college soccer star and family

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THE NTSB gave an update Monday on the early stages of its investigation into a weekend plane crash in upstate New York that killed six people on their way to a birthday celebration and Passover holiday events.

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This 2024 photo provided by John Santoro shows, from left, Dr. Michael Groff, Karenna Groff, Dr. Joy Saini, and James Santoro. (Courtesy John Santoro via AP)

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MIT women’s soccer graduate student Karenna Groff throws a ball prior to a baseball game at Fenway Park, Monday, April 3, 2023, in Boston. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa, File)

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This 2023 photo provided by John Santoro shows his son, James Santoro, and Karenna Groff, a former MIT soccer player recently named the NCAA Woman of Year. (Courtesy John Santoro via AP)

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This image provided by Charlotte Elizabeth Pasko shows Alexia Couyutas Duarte, center, with her family at her graduation from Swarthmore College. (Charlotte Elizabeth Pasko via AP)

COPAKE, N.Y. (AP) — Federal investigators are outlining the final moments of a plane crash last month in upstate New York that killed a family from Massachusetts heading to the Catskills to celebrate a birthday and the Passover holiday.

The victims of the April 12 crash in Copake, New York, included Karenna Groff, a former MIT soccer player named the 2022 NCAA woman of the year; her physician parents, Dr. Michael Groff and Dr. Joy Saini; her brother, Jared Groff, and his partner, Alexia Couyutas Duarte; and Karenna Groff’s boyfriend, James Santoro.

The National Transportation Safety Board, in a preliminary report issued Friday, said the private plane departed Westchester County Airport in White Plains, New York, at around 11:30 a.m. heading north to Columbia County Airport in Hudson.

Piloted by Michael Groff, the plane had left the Boston suburbs early Saturday morning, picking up Karenna Groff and Santoro in White Plains before making the short trip to the Catskills to celebrate Karenna Goff’s 25th birthday.

But at about 11:57 a.m., Michael Groff informed air traffic control that he’d missed the initial approach to the runway at Columbia County Airport, according to the report. The controller then gave him new instructions for the landing, which Groff acknowledged a little after 12 p.m.

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About a minute later, though, the controller warned Groff the plane was flying at a low altitude, the report states. The pilot never responded, and, despite multiple warnings, air traffic control received no further radio transmissions from the plane until radar contact was eventually lost.

The Mitsubishi MU-2B-40 crashed in snow covered terrain roughly 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the airport.

Investigators didn’t provide an exact cause of the crash in the preliminary report.

But they noted that all major components of the aircraft found within a 150-foot debris field and that no significant weather advisories were in effect in the region at the time of the crash.

NTSB officials have previously said overcast conditions may have impacted the pilot’s visibility and that an initial investigation had not turned up any issues with the aircraft.