Family, Friends Remember Victims Of Armonk Small Plane Crash
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A father is in mourning after his beloved son's family was lost in a horrific plane crash in Westchester County on Saturday.
One day after Father's Day, William Weiner is preparing to bury his son, 63-year-old Keith Weiner.
"I don't know what I'm going to say or do," he said.
Keith was the pilot of Saturday's ill-fated Cessna-210, which crashed and burned in Armonk shortly after takeoff from Westchester County Airport. Also killed in the crash were Weiner's wife, Lisa, their 14-year-old daughter Isabel, and her young friend.
"They had trouble recognizing who was who," Weiner said. "We still didn't get the body released."
Weiner said Keith, a flight instructor, was an ace pilot, and that flying was in the family's blood. Keith's wife, Lisa, was also a licensed pilot.
Though National Transportation Safety Board investigators were stills earching for clues in the crash on Monday, Weiner thinks it had to be mechanical failure – that it couldn't be his son's fault.
"It's terrible, it's terrible," he said.
Keith and Lisa had been married for nearly 25 years. He ran an art gallery and framing business in Piermont, where news of the tragedy spread amongst those who knew them.
"It's unspeakable," family friend Wilson Vasquez said. "It's the saddest thing to hear about."
The couple was especially proud of their daughter, Isabel, who had just celebrated her Bar Mitzvah in Israel last year. She was an aspiring ballerina who had just been accepted into a prestigious school.
At the family's home on West 57th Street, folks in the building said the Weiners were friendly and loving.
"They were like a family to us," a doorman said.
For William Weiner, who clung to the Father's Day card he received from Keith on the very day of his death, it was all too much to bear.
"It ruined my life forever," he said.
NTSB investigators said the exact cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
