Pastor Killed In Plane Crash Flew Dogs To New NJ Homes

The pilot killed in a fatal North Jersey plane crash earlier this month used his plane to give hundreds of rescue dogs new homes.

The Rev. Andrew John Topp died May 2 when the Pipe PA 32 plane he was piloting crashed into a heavily wooded area after it took off from Greenwood Lake Airport in West Milford.

Topp flew more than 300 rescue dogs to New Jersey for Good Dog Rescue during the last two years. The Berkeley Heights organization is hosting a series of special rescue flights in Topp's memory Saturday.

Pilots will pick up dogs at Stanly County Airport in North Carolina and fly them to Morristown Municipal Airport. The dogs will be brought to the group's headquarters where they will be bathed and given check ups before being placed in foster homes.

"This transport is specifically to honor Rev. Topp's work for us and to carry on his legacy as a humanitarian and animal lover who used his plane for good," said Matthew Holowienka, a Good Dog Rescue spokesman.

Topp was always helping others, throughout the United States and the world.

Topp was pastor of First Reformed Church in Boonton for 20 years and president of the International Humanitarian Aid Foundation, a nonprofit he founded 11 years ago.

Topp "played a vital role" in taking supplies to Texas following Hurricane Harvey in 2017, Holowienka said.

Topp flew to Haiti once a month to help with orphanages and schools his foundation started there following the devastating earthquake in 2010.

"He was a humanitarian before anything else, and he was a hard-working father for all six of his children," his daughter Erica Topp Fischer-Kaslander previously said. "He was a neighbor to everyone regardless of how far away he lived."

Tapp was testing the plane out for another relief flight to Haiti he was going to take later this month when it crashed.

"He used that plane to deliver hope to others," Fischer-Kaslander. "He died the same way he lived. He loved taking risks that allowed him to serve people."

Related: Pilot Killed In NJ Plane Crash Was North Jersey Pastor

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Photo: The Rev. Andrew John Topp, left, and Home for Good Dog Rescue's co-founder, Richard Errico, on a February 2018 rescue flight. (Courtesy of Home for Good Dog Rescue)