WNBC 4 – February 28, 2017
by Wale Aliyu and Katherine Creag
Two off-duty FDNY firefighters were among the group of U.S. Army National Guardsmen who rescued a pilot from a plane crash on Long Island that killed two others on Sunday. Flight instructor Arieh Narkunski, 64, of Brooklyn, and 65-year-old Robert A. Wilkie of Hempstead were both killed when the vintage propeller plane they were in went down near Gabreski Airport in Westhampton on Sunday.
The pilot and owner of the plane, 61-year-old Richard B. Rosenthal, of Huntington Station, was practicing takeoffs and landings when the plane crashed, according to the FAA. He was rescued by a group of National Guardsmen passing by in a helicopter — which included two off-duty FDNY firefighters — and is recovering.
The helicopter with four guardsmen was flying to the Guard’s base at the airport for a training exercise when the airport tower told them a small plane had gone down, Newsday first reported.
The guardsman and off-duty firefighter who was piloting the helicopter, CW3 Joseph McCarthy, told NBC 4 New York that he saw the survivor trying to escape the flaming wreckage. He said he landed the chopper a few hundred feet from the plane and fellow guardsmen ran out to help the survivor.
Yaanique Scott, the other off-duty firefighter, said he jumped on the other side of the wing and opened the canopy cover to give the survivor enough room to escape. McCarthy said their National Guard helicopter was on the ground within two minutes of the crash; it took another 10 minutes before the other first responders arrived.
“We did what we could to subdue the flames but it was fuel-driven,” he said in a statement on the FDNY’s Facebook page. “Once fire companies arrived on scene, Firefighter Scott jumped on the hose line and assisted them in further rescue efforts.”
Rosenthal, who works as an attorney in Queens, was taken to Stony Brook University Hospital, officials said.
Scott works with Engine 291 and McCarthy is from Ladder 55. Chopper 4 video showed the charred wreckage of the plane, a Ryan Navion F, in the woods off runway 33.
The airport is used by corporations and private plane owners, as well as the 106th Rescue Wing of the Air National Guard. It was built by the federal government in 1943. The FAA said the National Transportation Safety Board will be in charge of the investigation and determine probable cause of Sunday’s crash.
No comments yet.