Chasidic pilot hailed for ‘averting tragedy’ in Cresskill crash
Breaks legs in emergency landing behind swim club
A Chasidic pilot for the Coast Guard auxillary crash-landed his Cessna airplane in Cresskill on Thursday after encountering engine trouble, bringing it down in a recreational field and sustaining serious injuries.
The pilot, Jack Rosenberg, also known as Yaakov, was doing routine patrols over the Hudson River along with copilot Erik Pearson when the engine on his Cessna 172 apparently failed. Authorities hailed Mr. Rosenberg for avoiding injuries on the ground when he crashed in the soccer field in Bergen County.
“ If you see where they landed on the very edge of the field, my opinion, they did a damn good job of averting a tragedy by getting over there,” an official told NBC.
Mr. Rosenberg, a father of seven from Spring Valley, N.Y., is a member of the auxiliary Coast Guard, a volunteer organization that helps the Coast Guard’s efforts to promote recreational boating safety
He made headlines in 2006 when he petitioned the Coast Guard to make an exception to rules barring the wearing of visible non-military headgear so that he could wear his yarmulke during his volunteer work. After New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind took up Mr. Rosenberg’s cause and then-Sen. John Kerry wrote a letter on his behalf, the Coast Guard was eventually was persuaded to accommodate the skullcap.
After Thursday’s crash, Mr. Hikind hailed Mr. Rosenberg’s performance in the air.
Mr. Rosenberg broke both legs and was in surgery for more than nine hours, according to Mr. Hikind. Both pilots were reported in stable condition at Hackensack University Medical Center.
According to the preliminary findings of a Federal Aviation Administration investigation, Mr. Rosenberg had reported a “rough-running engine” and sought to land at Teterboro Airport. He then tried to make an emergency landing in Tenafly but decided against that because the field was full of people, Cresskill Police Chief Ed Wrixon told The Record. In Cresskill, he first sought to land in a baseball field but it was full of pople.
In the end, Mr. Rosenberg crashed near Regan Field behind the Cresskill Swim Club just hours before youth sports teams were due to practice there.
“If it was another hour from now, this place would have been packed,” Mr. Wrixon said.
Rosenberg is a member of the Viznitz Chasidic sect who is known for going out of his way to help others.
“All his good deeds came back to him,” said Rabbi Mayer Berger, operations director for Chesed Shel Emes, a Brooklyn-based group that dispatches planes and helicopters to help Jewish families retrieve sick or injured relatives and comply with religious burial laws, told Rockland County’s Journal News. “It’s a miracle.”
Mr. Rosenberg, who has a tire business, is a certified pilot and volunteers for Chesed Shel Emes, which was founded by his brother, Mendy. He won wide praise in 2011 when he flew a helicopter to take food and medicine to a group of observant Jews stranded in Killington, Vermont, after roads were washed away by Hurricane Irene.
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