Shelter Island Good Samaritan immediately on scene of plane crash

On Thursday, Aug. 22. Brian Lechmanski, superintendent of the Shelter Island Country Club, decided to have lunch at home and then head back to work.

His place, right across from Klenawicus Airfield, has been in the family for generations. Living that close to the airfield from the time he was a boy, Mr, Lechmanski said, has made him a keen observer of aircrafts and air traffic.

It was one of those beautiful days the Island was blessed with last week, warm but not hot, bright, with a strong breeze and high skies. Mr. Lechmanski and his son, Jake, 5, were having lunch a few minutes past noon under a tent in the back yard when he spotted a plane in the distance approaching the airfield.

“Jake, you want to watch the plane land?” he asked his son and both got up to track the plane’s approach.

They watched as the plane circled, and as he watched, he knew something was wrong. “I looked at the windsock, and as he approached I knew he was making the wrong decision,” Mr. Lechmanski said. “I thought: This is not going to end well.”

He made quick calculations as he watched: the pilot was flying much to fast; there wasn’t enough room to bring the plane to a stop safely; and the pilot hadn’t considered the wind conditions for his approach.

“I had my phone out and called 911 as soon as the plane touched down,” he said. It was 12:11 p.m. “Then I told Jake to go find his mother,” and he started running full-out toward the still-moving plane.

According to Shelter Island Police Department Det. Sgt Jack Thilberg, the single-engine aircraft was piloted by Michael Eli Noam, 78, of New Milford Conn., and one passenger, Nadine Strossen, 74, also of New Milford. The plane had taken off from Danbury, Conn.

According to Sgt. Thilberg, “During the landing, the pilot made what is referred to as “a poor aeronautical decision,” which Mr. Lechmanski had seen clearly.

The aircraft struck the paved portion of Burns Road, and the pilot was unable to bring the plane to a stop. It went over the roadway and a front wheel was torn off before it crashed nose-first into a grass lot. There was also serious damage to the wing and propeller.

A veteran Shelter Island Fire Department chief, officer and former Firefighter of the Year, Mr. Lechmanski continued running to the aircraft to provide any aid he could. He found the two passengers uninjured, but shook up from the ordeal. Island fire, police and emergency medical personnel were on the scene in minutes.

Mr. Lechmanski and Jamie Cogan, P.J. Lechmanski, Wesley Congdon and Gene Shepherd then took two hours out of their afternoon to move the damaged plane farther up the field to the Shelter Island Pilot’s Association’s hangar.

Later, Mr. Lechmanski was struck by an eerie sense of coincidence. “This happened before to me,” he said, remembering when he was his son’s age, three decades ago, standing in the exact same place, when an almost identical crash occurred.

He was grateful no one was hurt.

“If a plane had to crash,” he said, it was the best place, rather than landing in a neighborhood, or the center of town. “When you’re going to have an incident, this is the place.”