The two men who were killed when their small plane crashed at MacArthur Airport on Long Island Monday were identified as a couple from Virginia.
Christopher Kucera, 46, and Zachary Hatcher, 43, died after their single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza A36 went down shortly after taking off from the Ronkonkoma airport at around 6:15 p.m., Suffolk County police said.
Kucera, of Fredericksburg, was piloting the plane and Hatcher, of King George, was his only passenger, according to officials.
Both were pronounced dead at the scene of the wreck.
The couple had been visiting friends on Long Island and were heading back to Virginia when they were killed.
Witnesses said the plane had just taken off but quickly came back to the runway before it crashed into a grassy area.
Kucera, an air and space engineer, was an experienced pilot who learned to fly before he was 17 years old, his brother, Mike Kucera, told the Fredericksburg Free Press.
“Chris died doing what he loved most and with the man he loved most. We are grateful for that,” he told the local publication.
He believes the plane lost power and went down.
“Considering the loss of power so soon after takeoff, Chris is a hero for avoiding casualties on the ground,” he said.
“We’re devastated,” Mike Kucera added. “Chris loved that plane, and he loved Zach.”
Hatcher, meanwhile, was supposed to start a new job as CEO of the nonprofit Community Foundation of the Rappahannock River Region early next month, the Free Press reported.
“Zach and Chris were fun people to be around,” the charity’s outgoing CEO Teri McNally said. “I was telling someone today that both made you feel like they were your best friends. Everybody is saying, ‘He was my best friend.’”
The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the fatal crash.