Worry over 'final resting place' after plane crash at Beth Moses Cemetery

Michael Fried of Cedarhurst reacted with alarm when he heard that a small plane had crashed Saturday into Beth Moses Cemetery in Pinelawn, where his parents, Naomi and Lewis, are buried.

He wondered: What about his mom and dad’s side-by-side plots and gravestones?

“It’s my parents’ sacred resting place — their sacred final resting place. I want to make sure that they’re OK,” said Fried, a 63-year-old retired insurance executive. On Friday evening, Fried said, he had lit a Yahrzeit candle to commemorate the four-year anniversary of his mom’s death according to the Jewish calendar. 

The plane crash happened the next day at about 1:45 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration, landing along a row of gravestones. The pilot and his adult female passenger were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, a county emergency response coordinator said later that afternoon.

In the days since, Beth Moses has been flooded with calls from family members inquiring about the state of graves or damage, and the cemetery is addressing each call individually, according to a Beth Moses office worker who declined to give her name. Fried said Tuesday evening that a message he left on the cemetery's voicemail hadn't been returned.

No inventory of the extent of the damage has been released by the cemetery, which is on Wellwood Avenue, and repeated calls for comment have gone unreturned. 

The plane had been bound for Republic Airport in East Farmingdale, flying in from Vermont, according to the website FlightAware. Just before the crash, the pilot had been making a visual approach to the runway when the plane developed engine trouble, according to Peter Knudson, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating. 

“First, the pilot reported losing engine power in one engine and then lost engine power in the second engine. Why the power loss? That’s what we intend to find out,” Knudson told Newsday.

On average, there are about 200 such crashes every year out of the 1,200 or so the board investigates nationwide, he said.

A preliminary report dated Monday from the FAA confirmed that the pilot and his passenger each sustained minor injuries; physical damage was “SUBSTANTIAL." The Suffolk County Police Department said the plane landed near Central Avenue and Wellwood.

The plane, a fixed-wing Beech B-60, was built in 1973, according to the FAA’s online database; the owner's name is listed as “REGISTRATION PENDING.” After taking off at 12:16 p.m. from the Burlington International Airport, the plane was due to land at 1:20 p.m., according to FlightAware.

Photos from the crash scene show the plane, with the nose angled down and at least one wing apparently broken; nearby, the propeller blades and hub are strewed atop of shrubs and dirt.

Neither the pilot nor the passenger could be reached for comment. Their names were not released.

Beth Moses, a Jewish cemetery that opened in 1949, has about 50,000 graves, according to the website of Star of David Memorial Chapels, which is located nearby on Wellwood Avenue.

Rabbi Levi Gurkov of the Chabad of Oceanside, who heads a burial society in Nassau County, said that any damaged gravestone must be restored.

“There is an obligation to restore the grave and to make it respectable and to make the memory of these individuals, which is perpetuated by the stone, which is a monument to the person and the personality, that the family and the community at large can have a place to pay their respects,” he said.

In the Jewish tradition, he said, the stone itself has an aura — “tzail” in Hebrew, which means “shadow” — “a remnant of the soul rests by the stone. So it’s imperative to restore that stone, so that the soul can continue to be at peace for eternity until the time of resurrection.”

With John Asbury

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.