A National Transportation Safety Board official stands beside a piece of the landing gear at the scene yesterday in Bedford, Mass., where a plane plunged down an embankment and erupted in flames during a takeoff attempt at Hanscom Field on Saturday night. Lewis Katz, co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and six other people died in the crash. (AP Photo/Boston Herald, Mark Garfinkel, Pool)
A National Transportation Safety Board official looks through the wreckage at the scene yesterday in Bedford, Mass., where a plane plunged down an embankment and erupted in flames during a takeoff attempt at Hanscom Field on Saturday night. Lewis Katz, co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and six other people died in the crash. (AP Photo/Boston Herald, Mark Garfinkel, Pool)
MARYCLAIRE DALE, Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The flight crew that died in a fiery crash aboard Philadelphia Inquirer co-owner Lewis Katz’s private plane this weekend had flown for the millionaire businessman and philanthropist for a decade, and among them was a pilot who survived an earlier fatal crash, relatives said yesterday.
Katz’s Gulfstream jet crashed during takeoff near Boston on Saturday night, killing him, three guests and three crew members.
The chief pilot was James McDowell, of Georgetown, Delaware, authorities said. Spouses identified two of the crew members yesterday as flight attendant Teresa Benhoff, 48, of Easton, Maryland, and co-pilot Bauke “Mike” de Vries, 45, of Marlton, New Jersey.
“I knew he was on a safe plane. I knew it was a well-maintained plane,” de Vries’ wife, Shelly, told The Associated Press. “I know the other captain had a great, long history, (and) was also a mechanic.”
The rest of the victims were identified earlier as Katz’s neighbor at the New Jersey shore, Anne Leeds, a 74-year-old retired preschool teacher he invited on the trip just that day; Marcella Dalsey, the director of Katz’s son’s foundation; and Susan Asbell, 67, the wife of a former New Jersey county prosecutor.
Skid marks are seen on the runway at the scene yesterday in Bedford, Mass., where a plane plunged down an embankment and erupted in flames during a takeoff attempt at Hanscom Field Saturday night. Lewis Katz, co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and six other people died in the crash. (AP Photo/Boston Herald, Mark Garfinkel, Pool)
The trip would be the last of many over the years the flight crew took with Katz; all three had worked for him for 10 to 15 years, relatives said. They had been expecting to take Katz, a sports team owner-turned-philanthropist, to France later this month, said Benhoff’s husband, Dan.
The co-pilot, de Vries, had come to the U.S. from the Netherlands as a young man to attend flight school. In the early 1990s, he was a passenger in a two-man crash that killed a pilot at a southern New Jersey airport, his wife said.
“Lucky for him, he didn’t remember it, and he didn’t remember about 12 to 24 hours before it,” she said.
So he had no fear, she said, and still loved to fly.
Officials work near wreckage at the scene yesterday in Bedford, Mass., where a plane plunged down an embankment and erupted in flames during a takeoff attempt at Hanscom Field on Saturday night. Lewis Katz, co-owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer, and six other people died in the crash. (AP Photo/Boston Herald, Mark Garfinkel, Pool)
Katz had gone to Massachusetts on Saturday to attend an education-related event at the home of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. He often would take spur-of-the-moment trips, and his crew was at the ready. Benhoff said his wife was on call all day, every day, and they spoke throughout the day Saturday.
“She loved to fly,” he said. “She trusted that airplane.”
Benhoff loved working for Katz, her husband said, and had gotten to know Katz’s late wife, his children and grandchildren during their vacations, business trips and flights to and from family homes in Philadelphia; Palm Beach, Florida; the New Jersey shore; and New York.
The family of McDowell, the chief pilot, declined to comment.
At the crash site yesterday, tire marks were visible where the jet ran off the runway at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts. The plane had burst through a chain-link fence and toppled part of a runway lighting system.
The cockpit was burned but mostly intact, with the nose resting on a hill, and the burned-out fuselage lying in a ravine. The victims’ bodies had been removed.
The National Transportation Safety Board said last night it had recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder. NTSB investigator Luke Schiada had said yesterday afternoon a crane was being used to lower somebody into the wreckage to search for the black boxes, which were located in an area heavily damaged by fire.
In 911 calls released yesterday, neighbors described a loud explosion and towering column of smoke. One caller Saturday night said it looked like “an atomic bomb went off” and described “a mushroom cloud” of smoke and fire.
Katz, who was 72, made his fortune investing in parking lots, billboards and the New York Yankees’ cable network. He once owned the NBA’s New Jersey Nets and the NHL’s New Jersey Devils and in 2012 became a minority investor in the Inquirer.
Less than a week before the crash, Katz and Harold H.F. “Gerry” Lenfest struck a deal to gain full control of the Inquirer as well as the Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com by buying out their co-owners for $88 million.
A public memorial service for him was planned for tomorrow at Temple University in Philadelphia, where Katz was an alumnus and trustee.
