North Myrtle Beach plane crash victims remembered for big hearts, bright smiles in tributes

Joseph Farnese was a father of three, expectant grandfather and devoted doctor who not only knew all his patients by name, but what they did for work.

Tanique Chue hoped to one day help others, and was taking classes at Thomas Edison State University’s accelerated nursing program. She and her son, Sean, were well known in Seaford Town, the tiny Jamaican settlement they called home for several years.

A week after five people were killed in a plane crash near Barefoot Resort and Golf and North Myrtle Beach, local news reports, an obituary and social media posts are giving a fuller picture of those aboard the single-engine Piper PA-32.

It’s still not known what led to the airplane’s plummeting into a wooded area off Pete Dye Drive just one minute after taking off from the Grand Strand Airport on July 2, but North Myrtle Beach police spokesman Patrick Wilkinson said authorities believe it was an accident.

The National Transportation Safety Board has not yet published its preliminary findings about the incident.

The pilot, Joseph Farnese, was an avid outdoorsman and community leader.

Farnese, 66, was a top rated internist in the Little Falls, N.J., area. A 1979 graduate of Rutgers University, he obtained his medical degree from St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada five years later.

Farnese spent nearly four decades in private practice.

“Joe took the true meaning of family practice seriously. His patients were his family. The number of lives Joe touched is immeasurable,” his obituary says. “He helped everyone he met and worked tirelessly doing so. He had the biggest heart, especially when it came to his family.”

Rick Ricciardelli, a life long friend and one of Farnese’s patients, told the Newark Star-Ledger the doctor was on his way home from a weekend fishing trip. A skilled and careful pilot, Farnese was known to take friends, relatives and even patients on quick getaways.

“I have never in my life witnessed such grief and sorrow in people,” Ricciardelli told the newspaper on July 7. “It’s a monumental loss for so many people that you can’t even believe it.”

Farnese was also an FAA-certified aviation medical examiner who helped determine the physical fitness of current and would-be pilots based on a rigorous checklist.

“From Wildwood Crest to Myrtle Beach to countries outside of the United States, Joe found beauty wherever he flew,” his obituary says.

Tanique Chue was an aspiring nurse with a bright smile. Her son was visiting for the summer.

Chue, 32, was an aspiring nurse who had been in New Jersey for the past few years for school. Her 7-year-old son Sean Gardner was visiting for the summer from his home in Seaford Town, Jamaica, where lived with his father.

Gardner was set to resume classes at Mt. Alvernia Prep and Kindergarten on Sept. 4, according to a profile in The Gleaner, a Kingston-based newspaper.

“Everybody is taking it hard. My brother is devastated. Sean was his only child. It’s rough, very rough. Everyone is rallying around him to try to keep him up because he is worrying like crazy, wondering how he is going to live without his son,” Sean’s uncle, Kenny, told the newspaper.

Kenny Gardner said Chue was visiting friends in South Carolina for the weekend, and took Sean with her for the experience.

Roberto Foster, Gardner’s first grade teacher, told The Gleaner the child’s death stunned him.

“‘Is this real’? I kept asking myself. I was so shocked when I heard of his death, I was unable to focus,” said Foster. “He was such a loving, charming, and helpful child.”

Days after Chue’s death, Thomas Edison State University president Merodie Hancock called her a “committed and caring TESU student” in a blog post.

“I understand that this tragedy has not only affected the families directly involved but also has sent shockwaves through the entire community of East Orange, N.J., our TESU nursing community, and those with connections to Jamaica. To all who have been touched by this heartbreaking event, know that our thoughts are with you,” Hancock wrote.

Two other people, 42-year-old Suzette Coleman-Edwards and her daughter, Odaycia, 17, were aboard the airplane as well, though information on them was not immediately available.