The Hamptons real-estate agent killed alongside her toddler in a “ghost plane’’ crash was adopted at age 40 by notable Trump donors — who said she reminded them of their daughter who had died in a tragic scuba diving accident almost 30 years ago.
Adina Azarian, a top longtime New York realtor, and her 2-year-old daughter, Aria, were two of four people killed when a private jet crashed in rural Virginia on Sunday, said her adoptive father, John Rumpel.
Rumpel, a Florida business magnate and GOP donor who gave $250,000 to then-President Donald Trump’s failed 2020 re-election campaign, said Azarian, 49, and his first daughter, Victoria, had “the same fire in their bellies.
“They were loving, caring children,” Rumpel told the Washington Post. “We had no one else, and we loved her.”
Rumpel and his wife, Barbara, lost their daughter Victoria, 19, in a tragic scuba-diving accident in 1994, the Washington Post reported.
He and Barbara, an executive committee member of the National Rifle Association’s Women’s Leadership Forum, were reportedly reminded of their first daughter when they got to know Azarian. The couple adopted Azarian, 49, nine years ago.
Rumpel retired from flying 30 years ago but owned the doomed Cessna jet to keep his family close, he told the paper.
Azarian’s adoptive father echoed sentiments expressed by her friends when they told The Post she struggled for years, suffering through miscarriages and failed rounds of in-vitro fertilization, before she conceived her “miracle baby.”
Azarian wrote in a 2020 Facebook post that being a mother was the “greatest honor of my life” after Aria’s birth.
She said she hoped by sharing her journey, her story could serve “as a source of inspiration for any woman going through the same struggles with infertility or simply with the decision to create your own family on your own terms.”
While her adoptive parents donated heavily to GOP causes, Azarian kept out of politics, one of her friends told The Post.
On Sunday, the Cessna jet owned by Rumpel departed from Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Tennessee and was headed for Long Island MacArthur Airport in New York, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
The plane had reached the New York area before turning toward Virginia, according to the flight-tracking website Flight Aware, nearing restricted airspace over the nation’s capital.
After the plane entered a restricted zone and with no response from the pilot, two F-16s were deployed and were authorized to travel at supersonic speeds, causing the sonic boom that was heard across the capital and neighboring communities in Maryland and Virginia.
After flying over DC, the “ghost plane” — a term used in situations including when the pilot loses consciousness and the aircraft continues to fly — continued its chaotic descent.
Aviation experts believe there was a catastrophic loss of oxygen in the plane that incapacitated the pilot and passengers.
In addition to Azarian and her daughter, the plane’s pilot, married dad of three Jeff Hefner, and their nanny, Evadnie Smith, were aboard the doomed flight.
The plane dropped over 30,000 feet per minute before crashing, in what first responders believe was likely a near-nosedive.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the incident, with officials noting they would have a preliminary report ready within three weeks.
