Who is John and Barbara Rumpel, the owners of the Cessna that crashed?

The Cessna that crashed on Sunday, June 5 2023, was registered to Encore Motors of Melbourne Inc, which is based in Florida. John Rumpel, the company’s owner and pilot, said his family was returning to their home in East Hampton, Long Island, after visiting him in North Carolina.

Rumpel told the New York Times that he didn’t have much information from authorities but speculated that the plane’s pressurisation may have failed. “It descended at 20,000 feet a minute, and nobody could survive a crash from that speed,” Rumpel told the newspaper.

Rumpel identified his daughter, Adina Azarian, and his 2-year-old granddaughter Aria as two of the victims in interviews with the Times and Newsday. His wife, Barbara, expressed her grief on social media. “My family is gone, my daughter and granddaughter,” she lamented.

Azarian, 49, was well-known in real estate circles in both New York City and Long Island, with friends and family describing her as a fiercely competitive entrepreneur who started her own brokerage while raising her daughter as a single parent.