MrsSchwags
Soccer Baseball Lax Mom
Member since 10/05 11240 total posts
Name:
Jennifer
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Sad phone call received from school today
We get those automated phone calls from the principal.
This was the story to the message:
Newsday
Wading River pilot killed in upstate air show
A Riverhead High School art teacher and amateur pilot died Sunday after his replica biplane nose-dived, then crash-landed and burst into flames during a Hudson Valley air show, officials said.
Vincent Nasta, 47, of Wading River, was flying a World War I-era single-engine replica of a French plane, a 1917 Neiuport 24, when it crashed about 300 yards from the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome.
The plan landed in woods and caught fire. Nasta, a veteran pilot and flight instructor, was alone in the plane.
Nasta was also an illustrator for children's books, including "The Moon of the Winter Bird" and "Plane Song."
Nasta would often fly organs to people awaiting transplants, Riverhead schools superintendent Diane B. Scricca said in a phone interview with the Poughkeepsie Journal. "This is just a wonderful human being who gave his time for the good of others . . . This is a great loss, not only to our district, but I really believe to greater humanity."
A man who was playing softball nearby, Jim Rushmore, 30, described the accident to the Poughkeepsie Journal, "The plane went across the field and the engine died and we saw it nose-dive. It was a huge crash. In a few minutes, we smelled the burning field and saw smoke in the woods."
Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman says the agency is assisting the National Transportation Safety Board in the investigation.
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Message edited 8/18/2008 1:45:17 PM.
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