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 Posted: Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:06 pm Post subject: Lost a Rocket on Friday |
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http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/186/story/188386.html
Atlantic City officer, wife ID'd in plane crash
Police chief says loss felt throughout community
Police chief says loss felt throughout community
(Published: Sunday, June 22, 2008
)
DENNIS TOWNSHIP - Friends say there were two things Dennis McGurk Jr. loved: flying and his wife, Oksana.
A few months ago, the Atlantic City police officer added to his love when he purchased a 2007 F1 Harmon Rocket Acrobatic Plane, for which he traveled to Texas to assist the manufacturer with custom assembly.
On Friday night, McGurk was piloting that plane with his wife by his side when he crashed in front of the Belle-
plain fire station parking lot on Route 605 in Cape May County at about 7:45 p.m.
"There was just this great big ball of fire," said Arletta Creamer, who witnessed the crash from the porch of her home across the street from the firehouse. "It was terrible."
Federal aviation officials still aren't sure what caused the crash that killed McGurk, 37, and his wife, Oksana, 34, State Police spokesman Sgt. Julian Castellanos said Saturday. The young Mays Landing couple had taken off within the hour from the nearby Woodbine Municipal Airport, Castellanos said.
"Everything my son did was adventurous," Dorothy McGurk, of Ventnor, told The Star-Ledger of Newark about her son. "He was quite a guy. I can't stop crying about it."
Drivers traveling on Route 605 Saturday afternoon slowed down to examine the tilting telephone poles and the dark splotch on the road marking the crash site. Some pulled into the firehouse parking lot to take a closer look.
Creamer didn't need a closer look. The part-time hairdresser spent most of Friday night staring out her bathroom window, watching cleanup crews sift through the wreckage.
"I watched them take the two stretchers out," Creamer said. "And (the wreckage) was just this huge black hump."
Susan Heaton was watching hummingbirds outside her window Friday evening when she heard a loud bang. She grabbed her camera and headed out her front door, which faces the firehouse a quarter-mile away. Through a small clearing, Heaton could see the smoking wreckage and snapped some photos.
Meanwhile, her husband slept soundly on the couch. It was his wife, not the crash, who woke him.
"He thought something was wrong with me," Heaton said. "I said that there was nothing wrong with me, but there was something out there."
McGurk's plane downed several electrical wires as it crashed. The entire area was without electricity until about 5 a.m. Saturday.
Shock spread through the law enforcement community Saturday as officers learned that one of their own had died in the crash.
"Officer McGurk was a valued and dedicated member of the department whose service focused on the community aspects of policing," Atlantic City Police Chief John Mooney said in a statement. "His loss will not only be felt in the department, it will be felt throughout the community."
Hector Tavarez, an Egg Harbor Township officer who heads the township's Police Athletic League said McGurk "was an incredible guy, always giving an awful lot of stuff to the kids. ... He always understood how to talk to them and what they were going through."
When Tavarez and Patrolman Al Maiorano debuted Ready to Ride - a motorcycle and ATV training program that gives youths a chance to wipe away court charges - McGurk involved several Atlantic City teens to keep them off the streets. He and his wife also helped to beautify the 30-acre recreational site in Egg Harbor Township.
Capt. Bill McKnight first met McGurk when he joined the force 11 years ago.
"He worked for me in community policing," McKnight said. "He first patrolled the Ducktown section and later Bungalow Park. The residents loved Dennis because he would take the time to stop and talk to them."
McGurk loved adventure, according to McKnight.
"Be it flying, off-road riding, waterskiing - whatever he was doing, he put his full self into it," McKnight said.
Especially flying.
McGurk happily talked of his new high-performance plane with fellow Atlantic City police officer and flier Dennis Munoz.
"He told me his plane was so fast, he flew to New Hampshire in about an hour or so, had lunch and flew back," Munoz recalled. "It took me two days to fly that. But I told him I like flying low and slow."
The Harmon Rocket is a plane used primarily for aerial stunts, said Castellanos, who would not speculate on whether McGurk was practicing stunts prior to the crash.
"We don't know what he was doing at the time of the accident," Castellanos said. "The FAA will be working to determine that."
Oksana McGurk, who graduated from Vineland High School in 1992, was a dental hygienist who also ran a landscaping business with her husband. She never flew herself, but she often shared in Dennis' passion.
"They did everything together," Munoz said. "They really did."
The crash is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and the state Department of Transportation's Division of Aeronautics.
Officials believe the crash was a one-plane incident - but they have not ruled out the possibility that a second plane might have been involved, Castellanos said. Police and FAA officials spent Friday night and Saturday searching the wooded areas near the crash site for more wreckage.
Creamer, who first noticed McGurk's plane doing a barrel roll overhead about five minutes before the crash, said she didn't see a second plane.
When Creamer saw McGurk's plane start a downward spiral, she assumed he was just doing another stunt.
"I even waved at him," Creamer said. "I looked up with a smile on my face and waved at him."
Creamer said she became alarmed when McGurk's engine suddenly cut out and he made no visible effort to pull himself out of the dive.
"The nose never came up," Creamer said. "I said, 'Oh my God, he's going to crash.'"
Munoz had no explanation for what could have caused his fellow flier to crash.
"You don't know what kind of G-forces he was experiencing," Munoz said. "Unless you see something on film, you can't guess what happened."
On Saturday, Munoz spoke with the instructors at the Millville Municipal Airport, where both men took lessons.
"They had nothing but praise for him," Munoz said. "He was a really good pilot."
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