Stafford, NJ - Four Die In Plane Crash

Stafford, NJ - Four people, including a Manalapan couple, were killed Wednesday morning when their plane crashed near Route 72, leaving authorities with a mystery as to what caused the four-seat Piper Dakota to break up in midair and plummet into the woods.

The crash victims were identified as two married couples Ronald Ziv, 53, and Rachel Ziv, 40, of the Basking Ridge section of Bernards, Somerset County; and David Nimrod, 48, and Karen Nimrod, who was about 50, of Sutton Drive in Manalapan.

The Piper Dakota PA-28-236, was owned by Aviron Aviation LLC of North Plainfield. And Ron Ziv was the president of Aviron, and the company's telephone number is the same as his business, Priv-Tov Food Broker. Priv-Tov has offices on Route 22 in North Plainfield and in Hod Hasharon, Israel, according to the company's Internet page.

The 10:40 a.m. crash shattered the morning calm on the streets of Beach Haven West, pieces of the plane showered homes in the neighborhood, alarming residents who were among the first to call for aid. The plane crashed into a densely wooded area between Route 72 and Bay Avenue, about 100 to 150 yards from the highway, police said. It did not start a fire.
"It came down like a bullet," Clifton resident Tom Tonner, 70, said as he stood outside his summer home on Dorothy Drive. "Things were falling out of the sky."

Authorities announced the deaths of three of the occupants shortly after the crash, then found the fourth body later in the afternoon. A temporary road was being built to reach the wooded area where the bulk of the plane and the bodies were.