By Grace Gilson
A Jewish family was killed last Saturday, Apr. 12, when their private plane crashed en route to upstate New York to celebrate Passover.
Among those lost in the crash were siblings Karenna Groff, 25, and Jared Groff, 26, and their parents, surgeons Dr. Michael Groff and Dr. Joy Saini.
Karenna’s boyfriend, James Santoro, and Jared’s girlfriend, Alexia Couyutas Duarte, 24, were also on board. Both couples planned to get engaged in the coming months, according to the Associated Press.
Michael Groff piloted the twin-engine plane that crashed in Copake, New York, after an unsuccessful landing attempt. The family’s youngest daughter, Anika, was not on board, according to the Associated Press.
Karenna Groff was the 2022 NCAA woman of the year when she played soccer for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She was enrolled at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.
In 2019, she played for the USA women’s soccer team at the European Maccabi Games in Budapest.
On the day of the crash, the Jewish Sports Heritage Association wished Karenna a happy birthday in a post on Facebook. The family was set to celebrate her 25th birthday alongside their seder, according to the Jerusalem Post.
Michael Groff was a neurosurgeon at Rochester Regional Health in western New York, having previously worked at Mass General Brigham in Boston and as an associate professor of neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School. Joy Saini was a urogynecologist at Boston Pelvic Health & Wellness.
“He was just a very human human being,” E. Antonio Chiocca, a colleague of Michael Groff at Mass General Brigham, told the Boston Globe. “He was very well-liked, very empathetic, very charismatic, very kind. He’s Jewish so we’d say, ‘He’s a real mensch.‘”
Jared Groff was a former basketball player at Swarthmore who worked as a paralegal, and his girlfriend Alexia Couyutas Duarte, a Colombia native, had plans to attend Harvard Law School in the fall.
Karenna Groff’s boyfriend, James Santoro, was also an MIT graduate and worked in investment banking.
“They were all so accomplished, but it was never about their accomplishments,” John Santoro, James’s father, told the Associated Press. “Everyone considered them such a bright spot in their life. I’m sad for myself and my family, but I’m sad for everyone else who’ve lost them, too.”
An exact cause of the crash remains unknown, according to a briefing Monday by Todd Inman, an official with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Grace Gilson wrote this article for the JTA global Jewish news source.
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