New York Daily News

NEW YORK – The teen who escaped death in a Coney Island plane crash by a quirk of fate knelt, wept and prayed Sunday night at a makeshift shrine to her fallen friends at their West Virginia school.

Melissa McCulley, 18, was one of the Four Musketeers – an inseparable band of friends and seniors set to graduate from their tiny Catholic school Tuesday.

Two of the teenage girls, the father of one and a Queens pilot perished when the single-engine sightseeing plane crashed on the Brooklyn beach Saturday.

McCulley survived because she had to get off the Cessna 172S in New Jersey because of airsickness. The tragedy left the fourth friend, who stayed behind to run in a track meet, and the entire town of Wheeling asking why.

“It’s a dream, it’s a dream, it’s not true,” said widower Robert Gross, 46, whose prom queen daughter Jo Beth was killed in the wreck. “I have nothing to live for,” the devastated dad told his daughter’s high school principal.

Jo Beth Gross, 18, Danielle Block, 18, and Danielle’s dad, William Courtney Block, 38, died along with pilot Endrew Allen, 34, when the plane lost power and slammed into the sand.

The National Transportation Safety Board said it wasn’t immediately clear what caused the crash, which sent beachgoers fleeing at 1:30 p.m. EDT Saturday.

Jodi Block lost both her daughter and her husband, who hopped in for the ride after McCulley had to get off.

The heartbroken wife and mom said her husband never could have lived with the loss of his beloved daughter. “He would have been inconsolable,” Jodi Block told the principal. “They were so close.”

“She said she’d rather have it that way,” said Brother Rene Roy, the principal of Bishop Donahue High School in Wheeling, W.Va.

For McCulley’s family, relief mixed with sadness.

“She’s devastated. Three days before graduation and she lost two of her best friends,” said McCulley’s brother, Brian, 19.

“There’s joy because my sister got off the plane,” he added. “But there’s grief over the fact that Courtney took her place. He’s a great guy.”

Robert Gross’ agony was compounded by the fact that his wife, Jo Beth’s mother, died of cancer just a few years ago.

The three high school friends had taken a trip to New Jersey to visit a former teacher and celebrate their upcoming graduation, set for Tuesday.

Along with a fourth girl, Katie Beiter, who couldn’t make the jaunt, they were dubbed the Four Musketeers.

They played sports together, acted in plays together and were the unquestioned leaders of their class of just 17.

When killer floods hit southern West Virginia last year, they spent two weeks of their vacation helping an amputee refurbish his ruined home.

“They wanted to make a difference in the world,” said Sister Teresa O’Connor, a religion teacher. “They were close in life and now they’re close in death.”

Katie Beiter was meeting with friends and trying to come to grips with the tragedy. “She’s sad and really broken up,” said her younger brother David.

Stunned fellow students gathered at the small brick school across from a church to mourn the girls. A Mass for graduating seniors is still planned for Monday night, followed by the bittersweet graduation Tuesday.

“They were like sisters,” said Travis Berarei, 17, a junior. “They were always smiling, always singing, always dancing.”

Samantha McGlunphy played on the softball team with the foursome. They turned a longtime-losing team into a 22-8 juggernaut in their final year.

“It was impossible not to like them,” said McGlunphy, 15. Two candles sat in front of the school, along with a softball mitt and ball, and poems about the girls.

Religion teacher Loretta Metz couldn’t get over the jarring image of the crumpled plane against a picture-perfect tableau of the beach.

“The sky was so blue, the sand was so white, the sun was so bright – and then that broken plane,” Metz said. “It was like perfection … and then this plane. And people you loved, dead.”

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