By Michael Morton
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were still examining the wreckage Tuesday in order to make an initial ruling as to why the aircraft ended up on the sand. After the crash, other pilots noted that planes in the area had to fly low to avoid Kennedy Airport-bound flights, leaving little room for recovery.The accident left two teenage girls from a small Catholic high school in West Virginia dead just before their graduation. The father of one of the students also went along for the tour of the city after another girl got off the plane back in New Jersey, where the aircraft was based, when she was hit with motion sickness during a brief flight on the Cessna.The pilot, Endrew Allen, was an experienced aviator with nearly 2,000 hours in the air, his stepfather, Emerson Clarke, said. Allen, a certified instructor, had left a position with the Air Fleet flying school in Linden, N.J., this past winter to join Horizon Air but came back after a few months because he missed the sensation of piloting small aircraft, Clarke said. Horizon Air is a West Coast regional carrier that is part of Alaska Airlines.”Even as a kid he built his own motor plane,” the stepfather said of a toy kit Allen put together.Allen moved to southeast Queens from the island of Jamaica with his family, then went on to study at Brooklyn College. Clarke said the family never had any trouble with Allen.”He was exceptional,” the stepfather said. “Not just because he was a pilot – he was a different kind of kid.”Clarke said after the accident Saturday, Allen's colleagues told him how the 34-year-old used to teach younger pilots and how he developed close bonds with students.”He loved people,” Clarke said.Allen's passengers included Courtney Bloc, 38; his daughter Danielle Bloc, 18; and her friend JoBeth Gross, also 18. Melissa McCulley, 18, initially got on board but then got sick. Allen was his mother's only child and lived at the home she shares with Clarke on 118th Avenue.”All that we're doing is grieving all the time,” Clarke said.Reach reporter Michael Morton by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718-229-0300, Ext. 154.
