BOSTON – At the last minute Saturday, Lewis Katz, a philanthropist and co-owner of the Philadelphia Inquirer, invited Anne Leeds, a longtime friend and neighbor from Longport, N.J., to accompany him and two others on a quick day trip to Concord, Mass. They were going to help support a nonprofit education effort.
The day before, Katz also had invited former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell. Such spur-of-the-moment invitations from Katz were common, a function of his access to a jet and his spontaneous personality. While Rendell could not make the trip, Leeds could, and she was ready to go within a couple of hours.
But on the way home Saturday night, the trip ended in disaster when the plane exploded in a fireball in suburban Boston. Everyone on board — four passengers, two pilots and one cabin attendant — was killed.
The flight crew that died in the fiery crash had flown for the millionaire businessman for a decade, and among them was a pilot who survived an earlier fatal crash, relatives said Monday.
Katz's jet crashed during takeoff. The chief pilot was James McDowell, of Georgetown, Del. Spouses identified two of the crew members Monday as flight attendant Teresa Benhoff, 48, of Easton, Md., and co-pilot Bauke "Mike" de Vries, 45, of Marlton, N. J.
"I knew he was on a safe plane. I knew it was a well-maintained plane," said De Vries' wife, Shelly. "I know the other captain had a great, long history, [and] was also a mechanic."
The other victims were Marcella Dalsey, the director of Katz's son's foundation; and Susan Asbell, 67, wife of a former New Jersey county prosecutor.
The passengers were longtime friends of Katz, sharing his passion for trying to bolster education opportunities, particularly for children in need, and were enmeshed in the civic life of South Jersey. Katz had invited them to a fundraiser at the Concord, Mass., home of historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and her husband, Richard Goodwin, an adviser to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson.
