Pilot of plane that crashed on Bethpage tracks remembered

WESTHAMPTON BEACH (WABC) -- More details are being learned about the pilot killed over the weekend when his small plane crashed on the LIRR tracksin Bethpage, Long Island.

The family says the pilot was restaurant owner Joseph Milo. Now there are questions about what air traffic controllers told him when he was desperately trying to make an emergency landing.

Milo and his wife are well known business people in Westhampton Beach.

I spoke with his wife Tuesday and she didn't want to talk about the moments before her husband's death.

But she says she knows in her heart her husband did whatever he could to make sure that if his plane was going to come down, he didn't take any lives.

Joseph Milo was the type of person that everyone loved because he cared about everyone he came across.

"He was a community person and the whole family is that way. So it's a real loss to the community," said Quogue resident Wyck Coddington.

The 59 year old was flying his plane from Westhampton Beach to New Jersey Sunday morning when around Bethpage he reported to air traffic control that he was experiencing difficulty maintaining altitude.

The controller at LaGuardia Airport responded, "There's a strip right about your 12 o clock and 3 miles. It's the Bethpage strip right there. And again Farmingdale about 10 o clock and 6."

However there hasn't been a landing strip in Bethpage for years.

The controler continued to advise Milo: "Charlie, the strip is a closed airport. I just know there is a runway there about 11 o clock and a mile and a half now."

Minutes later Milo's plane came down on the LIRR tracks at South Oyster Bay Road.

He died, but his passenger survived.

Milo owned Joe's American Grill in Westhampton Beach for more than 30 years.

He was a chef there too, but always made time to come out and talk with his customers.

I spoke with his wife Dini Hampton Milo, who didn't want to appear on camera but told me, "I've lost my soulmate, my everything, my best friend. I lost everything that day."

The NTSB says protocol is to review controller's conversation with pilot after any crash. A preliminary report is due out in 5 days.

They hope to interview the passenger once he has recovered.