After LI Mom, Child Die In Plane Crash, A Desperate Search For Answers

LONG ISLAND, NY — Days after a Long Island woman, her 2-year-old daughter, her nanny and their pilot died in a plane crash over rural Virginia, investigators are searching for answers — and aviation experts are weighing in on grim scenarios that likely led to their tragic demise.

Adina Azarian, 49, and her 2-year-old daughter Aria, as well as their live-in nanny and their pilot, died aboard a private Cessna. The plane sparked a response from fighter jets as it passed through restricted Washington, D.C., airspace Sunday, causing a sonic boom heard by scores. Azarian and her daughter were headed to their home in East Hampton.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it is investigating the June 4 crash of the Cessna 560 airplane near Montebello, Virginia. NTSB investigators arrived at the scene on Monday.

The pilot of the plane has been identified as Jeff Hefner, according to the New York Post. Evadnie Smith was the live-in nanny for Azarian who died in the crash, according to reports. Originally from Jamaica, Smith helped care for Aria at her mother’s East Hampton home, according to the US Sun.

According to the NTSB, at about 3:30 p.m., the Cessna 560 airplane crashed in a mountain area. The airplane was unresponsive to air traffic control communications. The aircraft overflew its destination of Long Island MacArthur Airport and headed back down south toward Elizabethton, TN, where it had initially taken off, the NTSB said.

Air traffic control lost communication with the plane during its ascent, the NTSB said.

According to a statement released on Twitter by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, "in coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration, NORAD F-16 fighter aircraft responded to an unresponsive Cessna 560 Citation V aircraft over Washington, DC, and northern Virginia on June 4, 2023. The NORAD aircraft were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds and a sonic boom may have been heard by residents of the region."

NORAD said the FAA confirmed that the pilot did not respond to air traffic control instruction around 1:28 p.m. Subsequently, the NORAD pilots visually inspected the Cessna as it was still airborne and confirmed that the pilot was unresponsive. NORAD pilots described the Cessna pilot as being "slumped over."

NTSB said investigators have begun the process of documenting the scene and examining the aircraft. Part of the investigation will be to request radar data, weather information and maintenance records. NTSB investigators will look at the human, machine and environment as the outline of the investigation.

The preliminary report, which includes factual information learned to date, is expected to be published in three weeks, the NTSB said.

At such an early stage of an investigation, the NTSB said they do not state a cause, but will provide factual information when available. Investigations currently take between 12 and 24 months to complete, the NTSB said.

Preliminary information indicates the last communication attempt with the airplane was at about 1:28 p.m. At that time, the airplane was at 31,000 feet. The airplane eventually climbed to 34,000 feet, where it remained for the rest of the flight until 3:23 p.m. when it began to descend. The airplane crashed at approximately 3:32 p.m., the NTSB said.

The airplane overflew Long Island MacArthur Airport at 2:33 p.m. while at 34,000 feet.

NTSB investigators who arrived at the scene to examine the wreckage and document the scene had to hike to the location due to the heavily wooded and rural terrain; the wreckage is highly fragmented, NTSB said. Investigators said they were expected to be on scene for three to four days. The wreckage will eventually be moved to a secure facility in Delaware, the NTSB said.

On Wednesday, the NTSB said the airplane did have a cockpit voice recorder, but it has not been located yet. NTSB investigators continued on-scene work; party members and the recovery crew surveyed the site.

The team will work on a plan for recovery, determining exactly what kind of equipment is needed. On-scene work for the investigation will conclude Thursday, the NTSB said. During the next phase of the investigation, investigators will analyze manufacturing and maintenance records and conduct interviews.

Aviation experts weigh in

Speaking with Patch, William Waldock, professor of safety science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, described what he believes may have happened to the doomed flight.

"It's entirely possible that we're never going to know precisely the mechanism that failed or why it happened," Waldock said.

However, he said, from what's been gleaned so far, the crash "fits the profile of a pressurization issue."

Waldock reflected on the 2005 Helios flight 522 crash into a Greek hillside. In that instance, he said, maintenance staff who were sealing a door had to put pressurization switches into manual mode; they were never switched back to automatic, a "human factor accident" that led to tragedy. Other issues led to that crash, he said, including the fact that the pilots were flying early in the morning and the sun made it difficult to see that the switches, which were above them in the cockpit, were in manual mode. In the case of the Helios flight, the plane kept climbing and, when the pilot lost consciousness, kept flying "in an orbit" on autopilot — until it ran out of fuel, Waldock said.

"That's the kind of profile we expect to see here," Waldock said. "When you put it all together, the loss of contact, the pilot unresponsive." Waldock said it's becoming a bit clearer that the plane did fly on autopilot; once it got to Long Island, it didn't have future instructions and it likely defaulted to the flight plan, he said.

Anthony Brickhouse, who also teaches at Embry-Riddle in the applied aviation sciences department, said that the fact that pilot was seen slumped over the cockpit "definitely speaks" to a medical condition, likely hypoxia, a condition where the pilot's brain does not get enough oxygen, he said.

"It can be a rapid situation, if you don't get a mask on within seconds," he said. "Or it's gradual, where slowly, you're losing your capacity to do things but because it's happening so slowly, you don't really notice."

Whether or not the pilot was suffering from hypoxia could possibly be determined if the voice recorder, and conversations with air traffic control, are located, Waldock said. "This is something investigators will have to work through and piece together," he said.

In the case of hypoxia, Waldock said, it was likely all aboard the plane were unconscious during the crash. "If you lose pressurization, whatever happened, will affect everyone." If they were suffering from hypoxia, he said, it was likely "they were all asleep."

The first stages of hypoxia, Waldock said, create an almost woozy or euphoric feeling. "You feel good, almost like having had a couple of beers," he said. "That's what gets pilots in trouble. It feels good — the alarm bells aren't going off in their heads."

As the hypoxia gets more severe, judgment issues ensue and there is a loss of consciousness, he said. "Once you realize you're in trouble, you're in it pretty deep," he said.

The plane, as in the crash in Greece, likely ran out of fuel, leading to its crash about a mile from the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia, Waldock said.

Pilots do have larger masks, almost similar to military masks that cover their heads and force oxygen into their lungs, but in cases of hypoxia, because pilots feel initially good, they might not activate them, he said.

Waldock, who has investigated about 400 accidents, said the crash fits the profile of "some sort of pressure-induced hypoxia situation."

The pilot, he said, was a retired commercial airline captain. "He had a lot of hours — but it can happen."

The Long Island community remains devastated by the death of Azarian, who they say fiercely loved her daughter Aria.

Friends shared their heartbreak with Patch.

In an interview with Patch, Tara Brivic-Looper shared her memories: "I adored Adina. We were New York girls at Dwight and then she moved to East Hampton," she said.

Motherhood was everything to Azarian, Brivic-Looper said. "Aria was her life. She really was her miracle baby."

Friend Lakhinder Jit Singh Vohra wrote: "I just lost my best friend in the Hamptons."

Speaking with Patch, Vohra said in the nine years the two had known one another, their friendship was colored by fun, fantastic adventures, and so much laughter. He'd "camp out" at her Hamptons home when he was visiting from New York City, where he lived when he met her, to attend an event for his company Party Digest.

Vohra told Patch he believed John and Barbara Rumpel, who were as close as family to Azarian, loved her like their daughter.

He also said his friend wanted to be a mother so badly that she pursued IVF to see that dream realized.

He mentioned that Azarian's family included her biological mom, sister, and brother, who were also rocked by loss.

Her baby was his friend's most precious dream. "She wanted a baby so much," he said.

Rumpel told the Post he adopted Azarian at age 40, years after losing his first daughter, Victoria, in a scuba diving accident when she was 19-years-old. Rumpel told The New York Times his daughter and grandchild were returning to their home in East Hampton after visiting his North Carolina home.

According to the Daily Mail, Barbara Rumpel, John's wife, posted on Facebook about the tragic loss. "'My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter,' Rumpel wrote in a Facebook comment," the Daily Mail reported.