New Bedford's Runway Lights Insufficient at Time of Fatal Crash

The brother of a prominent Pennsylvania attorney who was among three people killed in a small plane crash questioned whether insufficient runway lighting contributed to the accident.

Peter J. Karoly, 53, of Bethlehem and his wife, Lauren Angstadt, 54, died Friday night along with the pilot of the single engine plane, said Karoly's brother, lawyer John Karoly Jr. of Allentown, Pa.

"The plane could not find the runway on its heading because there were no lights," he said Saturday.

Peter Karoly, an Allentown lawyer, was also known as an owner of the Allentown Ambassadors, a now-defunct minor-league baseball team.

The pilot was Michael Milot of Germansville, Pa., Karoly said.

The plane, a six-seat Socata TBM-700, missed its first approach at New Bedford Regional Airport while trying to make an instruments-only landing in the foggy weather.

It crashed on the second approach, said Jim Peters, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.

John Karoly said that sets of runway lights used by pilots who rely on their instruments to land were turned off at the time of the crash.

Earlier this month, the city of New Bedford asked the FAA to turn the lights back on. An emergency permit to do so had to be obtained from the local conservation commission because the runway is on protected wetlands, Peters said.

But the lights - which Peters characterized as "an additional aid" - remained off Friday because work clearing away vegetation had not been completed, Peters said.

Peters said the runway was safe and that lights lining the edges of the runway - as well as lights that run down the center - were on.

Pilots were notified about the situation, he said.

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Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia and Jay Lindsay in Boston contributed to this report.

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