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A southern Brooklyn-born American Airlines pilot who died in a plane crash near Washington, D.C., was remembered at his funeral on Tuesday as a devoted family man and skilled aviator.
Jonathan Campos, 34, was piloting the American Airlines flight that collided with a Blackhawk military helicopter over the Potomac River on Jan. 29, killing all 67 passengers and crew aboard the plane, along with the helicopter crew.
About 75 people gathered at the Shrine Church of St. Bernadette in Dyker Heights to honor Campos’ life. He was remembered as a wonderful person who loved his family and aviation.
Loved ones embrace outside the Dyker Heights church following the funeral service for Jonathan Campos.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
“He loved to travel, sometimes five times a week,” his ex-fiancé Nicole Suissa said during the service. Suissa recalled taking several cruises with Campos, as well as trips to Puerto Rico and Virgina, and going scuba diving. “I always knew I’d love you forever.”
Campos, a seasoned pilot with a passion for aviation, was remembered as an extraordinary individual by his alma mater. A 2008 graduate of John Dewey High School in Coney Island, Campos had dreamed of becoming a pilot from a young age.
Jonathan Campos, a 34-year-old Coney Island high school graduate, was identified as one of the 67 victims killed in the devastating midair collision between an American Airlines plane and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter Wednesday night.Epic Flight Academy/Facebook
“He was an amazing young man who had his life cut short at age 34. I was fortunate enough to follow his career path,” said Lane Rosen, a science teacher at John Dewey High School, in a Facebook post. “Jonathan was active, social and highly adventurous. He raced motorcycles, was licensed to fly helicopters, was a flight instructor and an aircraft mechanic. He was a certified scuba diver and had a passion for aviation and a zest for life.
After graduating from John Dewey, Campos relocated to Florida in 2008 to pursue his aviation dreams at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, where he earned his degree in 2015. He later trained as a certified flight instructor at Epic Flight Academy in New Smyrna Beach before becoming a captain in 2022.
Pilots and flight attendants lined the streets on Tuesday, holding one another as Campos’ casket was carried out.
Fellow pilots and airline staff pay their respects to Jonathan Campos.Photo by Lloyd Mitchell
A member of American Airlines said the pilot’s memory will never die.
“His skills as a commercial pilot were matched by his humility and kindness to all,” he said. “He made us a better airline field. Jonathan Campos will never be forgotten, and his memory will live on.”
Brooklyn Heights resident Melissa Nicandri, 28, also perished in the plane crash. Nicandri was returning home from a work trip in Kansas when her plane, which was connecting through Reagan, crashed into the Potomac River, her mother, Stacie Nicandri, told Gothamist.
The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the crash.
Low enrollment and financial struggles will bring the end for another Catholic school in Brooklyn this summer.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Academy in Sunset Park will permanently close at the end of the school year in June, its Board of Trustees announced last week, more than a century after it opened.
The K-8 academy has been facing “unsustainable enrollment and financial trends” for the last five years, according to the Diocese of Brooklyn. In 2020, 174 students attended OLPH. During the 2024-25 school year, just 111 students attended, and only 85 were enrolled for the upcoming year.
The school has dealt with declining enrollment for at least five years. Photo courtesy of Jim.henderson/Wikimedia Commons
With enrollment so low, OLPH would have been spending more than twice the cost of tuition on each student, per the Diocese — tuition runs $5,500, and the per-student expenditure would have been $11,600.
The Diocese conducted a “thorough analysis” to see if the school could be saved, said Deacon Kevin McCormack, superintendent of Catholic schools in Brooklyn and Queens. But the “pattern of student enrollment” and the academy’s financial situation made recovery impossible.
“Since 1917, Our Lady of Perpetual Help has been educating students in both the faith and academics, and this decision to close will not erase the success of the past 108 years,” McCormack said.
The Diocese will work with OLPH families to ensure students can be relocated to nearby Catholic schools, according to the a from the Board.
“St. Ephrem Catholic Academy, our closest partner school, has been especially generous in preparing to welcome our students and keep the spirit of OLPH alive,” the letter states. “We are committed to assisting every family in furthering their child’s education in a Catholic setting.”
The school year will finish as planned, the letter says, and students will still receive their First Communion and Confirmation. The Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, the church attached to the school, will stay open.
About 13 teachers are currently employed at OLPH, per the school’s website. John Quaglione, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn Diocese, said teachers seeking positions at other Diocesan elementary schools “will receive support” in their applications, and said all principals are asked to give priority to faculty and staff of a school that is closing. The closure will likely also impact the Regina Opera Company, which has operated out of OLPH’s auditorium since 2012. Regina did not immediately return a request for comment.
OLPH opened as St. Alphonsus School in 1903, and had at least 1,204 students by 1910, according to the school’s website. Our Lady of Perpetual Help High School, at the same location as the academy, closed in 1994.
The school will be the fourth Catholic school to close in Brooklyn in the space of a year.
In 2024, the Diocese closed the beloved Visitation Academy in Bay Ridge, as there were only two nuns remaining at the Visitation Monastery, which sponsored the school. It also shuttered Salve Regina Catholic Academy in East New York and St. Catherine of Genoa-St. Therese of Lisieux.
Bishop Robert Brennan of the Brooklyn Diocese with students at St. Ephram’s last month. Photo courtesy of John Quaglione/DeSales Media
Salve Regina and St. Catherine-St. Therese were forced to close due to “the pattern of student enrollment and the financial situation of each academy,” McCormack said last year in a statement nearly identical to the one issued about OLPH.
New York City’s Catholic schools have been struggling for years, though Catholic school enrollment across the country has remained largely steady. Still, Catholic schools in the U.S. have lost 14.2% of their student population since the 2013-14 school year, according to a recent report by the National Catholic Educational Association, and the number of Catholic schools in urban areas has been declining for decades.
Dozens of Catholic schools in New York City have closed since 2020, including six in Brooklyn in Queens. Last month, the Archdiocese of New York announced it would close two Catholic schools in the Bronx and that the buildings would be taken over by a charter school.
Charter schools are becoming steadily more popular in the U.S., according to the Pew Research Center, as enrollment declines in public schools. Enrollment at New York City public schools remained flat this year, according to Chalkbeat, but experts expect it will drop precipitously in the next decade.