Animal rescue pilot dies in Catskills plane crash, 2 dogs survive

A Virginia aviator dedicated to rescuing pets and animals was killed erstwhile his level crashed implicit the play successful the snowy woods of the Catskill Mountains, constabulary said.

The pilot, identified connected Monday as 49-year-old Seuk Kim, was traveling from Maryland to New York erstwhile his propeller-driven Mooney M20J went down aboriginal Sunday evening successful a distant country of Windham, immoderate 35 miles from his destination successful Albany. He’d been transporting 3 dogs astatine the time, each of them associated with a not-for-profit radical that transports rescue animals with assistance from unpaid pilots, according to Green County Sheriff Peter Kusminsky.

First responders  — including sheriff’s deputies, authorities wood rangers, authorities constabulary and section firefighters — descended connected the clang country astir 6 p.m. They yet located 2 of the canine passengers: a Labrador-mix puppy named Whiskey, who suffered breached bones, and an 8-month-old terrier premix named Pluto, who was near with lone insignificant injuries.

“It was beauteous frightened and it was dug down into the snow,” Kusminsky said of Whiskey, who was rushed to a infirmary successful Connecticut for treatment.

The 3rd canine, meantime did not survive.

Per a preliminary investigation, Kim died from the clang impact. News of the calamity prompted scores of tributes for the pilot, including from Maggie Pryor, manager of the Animal Shelter of Schoharie County. The dogs had been headed for the Connecticut shelter, constabulary said.

“Over the years, Seuk helped to prevention the lives of hundreds of animals who would person different been euthanized owed to overcrowding astatine carnal shelters,” she said.

Kim’s household successful a connection said helium was primitively from South Korea and “came to this state with small but a dream, and done hard enactment and perseverance, helium built a beingness of meaning and generosity.”

“He was a kind, selfless idiosyncratic who ever went retired of his mode to assistance others, nary substance the circumstances,” the connection said. “His bequest volition unrecorded connected successful the countless lives helium touched, some quality and animal.”

An probe into the clang is ongoing.

With News Wire Services