Wreckage Of Downed Hamptons Plane To Be Raised Next Week

QUOGUE, NY — The wreckage of plane that crashed off Quogue earlier this month, killing all three onboard, will be raised next week, according to Quogue Village Police.

And in an exclusive interview with Patch, Walter Britton of East End Dive Services described the search in murky depths to find the lost and bring their bodies home to their families.

The plane broke apart while in flight, according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board.

According to the report, the crash, which took place on Oct. 13 at 11 a.m., involved a Pipe PA-34 plane, which was "substantially damaged when it experienced an in-flight breakup" and plunged into the Atlantic, killing pilot Munidat "Raj" Persaud, 41, of Waterbury, CT, and passengers Jennifer Landrum, 45, of Augusta, GA and Richard P. Terbrusch, 53, of Ridgefield, CT.

Quogue Village Police said vessels and specialists from the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, Southampton Town bay constables, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, East End Marine Law Enforcement Task Force, East Hampton Town marine patrol, New York State Police, United States Coast Guard, Coast Guard Auxiliary, Suffolk County Police, Sea Town Marine, and East End Dive Services were involved in the search and rescue.

The commercial salvage was performed by SeaTow Shinnecock, or Lester Trafford, partnered with East End Dive Services and Walter Britton; their team was also instrumental in recovering the wreckage from an Amagansett plane crash in June.

During that operation, the team acquired a new ultra-high frequency side scan sonar that lets them see very detailed images of a wide search area under their vessel; their team located the fuselage after the Quogue crash using that sonar equipment.

After the crash, police said, vessels with special sonar mapped the area of the site which was defined by USCG specialists and the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department, based upon eyewitness accounts, weather, and ocean drift patterns. The plane's fuselage was located in 25' of water, a half mile from shore, police said.

Landrum and Terbrusch's bodies were recovered on Oct. 14 at 7 p.m., police said.

Britton, of East End Dive Services, described the process of recovering the lost and the wreckage.

Once a plane crashes, he said, and the plane goes below the surface, helicopters can be used to see what's on the surface of the water. Much of the time, once that occurs he said, "it's recovery — you're well past saving anyone's life. But you want to find the bodies and treat them with as much dignity as you can."

The wreckage of the plane, which was found 24' to 25' feet below the surface, can move due to drifting currents, he said; there are many factors to be considered, including the density of the waves. A plane can drift hundreds of yards down the beach before it hits bottom, he said. Heavier parts of the plane, he said, such as the engine, are dense and sink to the bottom more quickly.

In the case of the Quogue crash, the goal was to get an accurate shot of the point of impact, based on eyewitness testimony, drift information, and radar data, Britton, a former Southampton Town Police officer, said.

Once the point of impact was determined by the USCG, Britton said, side scanning and multi beam radar was used; the equipment is either pole mounted or towed on a cable, he said.

Those images are sent back to a video screen. "It paints a picture of what's on the bottom —there's tremendous resolution," Britton said. In the past, before the technology was developed, search efforts could be "really hit or miss," he said.

After searching the highest probability area, Trafford ran patterns parallel to the beach with the side scan sonar, and after an hour and a half picked up a target; next, Britton said, they used heavy weight lines and buoys to mark the spot, making multiple passes so that the sonar could obtain different aspects of the image and they could "stitch" the image together. "Each time we pass the markers, we get closer and closer to where it actually is and we zero in," he said.

While they were the ones that located the fuselage, Britton said all involved followed the same protocol and "were on the same page."

After locating the wreckage, Britton sent in diver Neil Stark, who was within 25' of the fuselage, he said; they added another buoy to mark the location. "There was zero visibility," with the bottom 4' of water murky, he said; the plane was laying on the bottom.

Next, once the diver confirmed that the wreckage was found, the police were called and dive teams mobilized.

There is a sense of fulfillment in finding the lost, he said. "It's really nice to know you're a part of getting the bodies back to their families. It becomes a mission."

Divers engage in a "cascading search," so there are always people in the water searching, Britton said. Teams are briefed and plans developed with one goal, he said: "How do we get to the bodies?"

In the Quogue crash, the wreckage was on the roof; the plane was upside down, with the cabin passengers in the fuselage strapped in, upside down," Britton said.

Britton described the relief, after the first body was found, of finding the second, and knowing the third had to be close.

The wreckage had to be lifted to help recover the partially trapped bodies, he said. Despite the fact that night was falling, all agreed that they would continue until all the bodies were recovered; the final man's body had yet to be brought to the surface.

"What was really amazing was that everyone said, 'We are not going home. We are not leaving here —until we take him with us,'" Britton said. "Everyone was on the same page."

Down in the murky depths, it was difficult to see, Britton said: "Imagine putting a bag over your head, going into a stranger's closet, and looking for a blue shirt. And then, doing it in the dark," he said.

Each cascading dive team had a mission, he said, all trying to recover the bodies. "It's a process, not perfection," Britton said.

Britton said he was contacted by the National Transportation Safety Board to recover the wreckage and help to raise it next week; he and Trafford also located the wreckage in an Amagansett crash earlier this year.

A barge and crane company will come to the scene to raise it in "one monolithic lift," he said.

While it's been a month with some storms, the wreckage may be battered, Britton said, but the hope is that all is relatively intact, with the frame altered as little as possible. Once the wreckage is out of the water, a more thorough investigation can ensue, Britton said.

Britton gave tremendous credit to SeaTow and law enforcement dive teams, including Southampton Town bay constables, who worked tirelessly.

The NTSB report stated that the flight, which originated from Danbury Municipal Airport, was headed to Charleston, South Carolina when the pilot said he was using visual flight rules, or flying visually and trying to maintain visual navigation without instruments, having trouble with an "unreliable" altitude indicator.

The controller then declared an emergency on behalf of the airplane, and suggested the pilot head toward Westchester County Airport; the pilot then asked the controller for the height of the cloud tops, and the controller replied the last reports were at 19,000 ft., the report said.

The pilot subsequently replied that the airplane would be climbing to 19,000 ft. As the airplane continued on a southeasterly heading, the pilot stated to the controller that the airplane was on top of the clouds, and that he would not be able to descend below the clouds, the report said; the controller instructed the airplane to turn west, though the airplane continued southeast.

"About two minutes later, after the controller repeated the instruction to turn west, the airplane entered a figure-eight turn and began to descend rapidly. Radio and radar contact was lost shortly thereafter," the report said.

A witness near the crash site reported seeing the airplane "nosedive" from out of the clouds and into the ocean after hearing the engine "throttle up severely and wind back down" several times. A second witness stated that the airplane sounded "as if it were a stunt plane doing spins," and then heard a "pop" and saw two large pieces of the airplane descending from the sky, the report said.

The airplane came to rest in 20 ft of water on the ocean floor — and a portion of the right wing was recovered floating above the airplane about a half mile offshore, the NTSB report said.

The weather at 10:53 a.m. indicated about 10-statue miles of visibility, light rain and wind.
According to thecount.com, Terbrusch was a high-profile divorce and family law attorney.
In an interview with Patch, Katie Cloneris, who was Terbrusch's assistant at Terbrusch Law Firm in Danburty, CT, where he was the sole practitioner, the news was very unexpected.

"It's a very difficult time for his family," she said, adding that he leaves behind one child.

"He was very close with his family," Cloneris said. "He was also very well-known throughout the polo community," where he was on a polo team, she said.

Remembering her employer and friend, she said: "He always had a smile on his face. He was very energetic, he never sat down always going, taking care of something for somebody. He never said 'no.'

He always tried to do his best, whoever was asking. That was something I looked up to him about."

She added that Terbrusch took her under his wing at the business. "He was really good to me and taught me a lot in the law office. I'm appreciative of the knowledge that he's given me."

Jennifer Landrum was a beloved special education teacher at Thomson High School in Thomson, GA. whose death has left a community cloaked in mourning.

"Our thoughts and prayers go out to the friends and families of the people who were aboard the plane," said Capt. Kevin Reed, commander Coast Guard Sector Long Island Sound. "We are grateful to the emergency responders who assisted in the search efforts."

The crash off Amagansett took the lives of Ben and Bonnie Krupinski, their grandson William Maerov, and pilot Jon Dollard, leaving hearts broken.

Patch photos by Walter Britton of East End Dive Services.