Parents killed in plane crash near O.B. airport
Children ages 12, 13 remain hospitalized with serious injuries
BY LAUREN MATTHEW
Staff Writer

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff Investigators look at the wreckage of Steve Ben-Hanania's six-seater Piper PA-34 Seneca plane Monday. The aircraft crashed near the Old Bridge Airport and Raceway Park Sunday night, killing Ben-Hanania and his wife, Shiry.

A twin-engine plane being flown by a Staten Island family crashed Sunday night near Old Bridge Airport, killing the parents and seriously injuring their two children.

Steve Ben-Hanania, 57, his wife, Shiry, 47, and their children, Amber, 13, and Adam, 12, were returning to the Pension Road airport, where they kept the small plane, after flying to Florida to attend a party.

The Piper PA-34 Seneca crashed around 10:20 p.m. after the right wing and wheel well clipped a 50-foot-tall tree about a quarter-mile west of the airport's runway, according to David Muzio, investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board. The six-seat plane broke into pieces and left a trail of debris for about 100 yards in a wooded area before hitting the ground and catching fire.

Steve Ben-Hanania, who piloted the plane, and Shiry were both pronounced dead at the scene, according to Old Bridge Police Lt. Robert Weiss, who called the crash "a confusing and horrific situation."

MIGUEL JUAREZ staff David Muzio of the National Transportation Safety Board addresses the media at a press conference Monday at Old Bridge Airport. Township Police Lt. Robert Weiss looks on.

Adam and Amber were both transported to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, New Brunswick, where they remained in critical but stable condition Tuesday, Weiss said. Adam suffered bruised lungs as a result of the accident, and Amber experienced head trauma and a severe injury to one arm.

Authorities speculated that Sunday night's murky weather might have contributed to the accident.

"Weather conditions at the time were extremely foggy," Weiss said. "Visibility was an issue."

Muzio said the investigation to determine a cause will take time. Two or three days will be spent examining the scene, which is across the street from Old Bridge Township Raceway Park. Then, the aircraft and its debris will be taken to a recovery facility in Delaware for further examination, he said.

"We're probably looking at eight to 12 months before probable cause is released," Muzio said.

There was no sign of a voice or data recorder on board the plane, Muzio said, and Ben-Hanania did not file a flight plan for the trip.

No call for help was reported either, Muzio said.

"I know that everybody wants an answer today, and I can understand that. But this is an investigation that is going to run for months," he said during a press conference at the airport Monday.

Investigators are looking into whether the Old Bridge Airport runway lights, which pilots activate themselves via cockpit radio remote control, had lit up for Ben-Hanania Sunday.

Muzio noted that Ben-Hanania did have a pilot's license, but he did not hold an instrument certificate, which is not required but makes it easier to navigate in bad weather through the use of cockpit instruments.

Though Ben-Hanania is believed to have been trying to land the plane at the airport, Muzio could not confirm the chain of events that occurred before the crash.

"I'm not going to speculate on what the pilot was or was not doing," he said.

Weiss said several witnesses reported that they heard the plane circling the airport.

"I do not know how many times it was circling or how they came to that conclusion," he said.

After the crash, Pension Road was closed to traffic through Monday afternoon.

It appeared that the Ben-Hanania children would not be alone in the hospital, as Weiss said the Ben-Hananias are part of a large, extended family, many of whom were on their way to the area Monday.

The family has faced tragedy before. A fire broke out at their home in 1999, killing Steve and Shiry's 3-year-old son, Royce, according to the Staten Island Advance.

Steve Ben-Hanania, a used car dealer and former U.S. Marine who emigrated from Israel, had also crashed a plane before. According to the Web site AircraftOne.com, he was landing at an unlit private airport during rainy weather in Lusby, Md., in 1990, when his Piper left the runway and skidded into an embankment. A report on the accident states that Ben-Hanania "misjudged the distance needed to touch down and stop his aircraft before running off the end of the runway."

No one was hurt during that crash.

The Ben-Hananias had recently moved into a new home about a month ago in Annadale, after spending most of the time since the house fire in Huguenot, also on Staten Island.

It was reported that the family was returning home from a party for Steve's 80-year-old mother in Florida when the crash occurred Sunday.

On Monday, Mayor Jim Phillips asked Township Council members and those present at the council meeting to recognize the work that local police, fire and other emergency personnel and volunteers had done in dealing with the aftermath of the crash.

"Our hearts go out to the family," Phillips said, noting that he had gone to the scene and witnessed the wreckage.

The mayor noted that all personnel involved were expedient and professional.

"[They] took a situation last night that was chaos and turned it into something controllable," he said.

Each person working at the scene knew their role and performed it without question, he said.

"I stood there and the most that I could do was stay out of the way," Phillips noted.

On Tuesday, Weiss told the Suburban that the remaining wreckage was being removed from the site that afternoon. The investigation, he said, would continue from there.

"There's no smoking gun at this point," he said.

There have been five previous aircraft accidents at Old Bridge Airport since 1995, according to the National Transportation Safety Board, but none resulted in fatalities.

The most serious of those accidents was in April 1996 when one person was seriously injured and another occupant received minor injuries. Their turbine-powered Cessna lost engine power, later determined to be the result of fuel contamination, at 7,500 feet. The pilot, unable to reach the runway and facing heavy surface winds, struck a tree while attempting to land in a nearby field.