Couple killed in Alpharetta plane crash were popular local dentist, wife

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Friends have identified a metro Atlanta couple killed in a small plane crash Monday as a well-known dentist and his wife.

Channel 2′s Bryan Mims talked to friend Susan Kaplan, who said Max Cohen and his wife, Sharon, were both aboard the twin-engine Beechcraft G58 when it went down in a densely wooded area near the Big Creek Greenway.

The couple’s golden retriever, Callie, also died in the crash.

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Investigators say they were cleared for approach into Dekalb-Peachtree Airport when the plane descended and disappeared from radar, but Cohen made no distress calls. The plane was flying from Jekyll Island, Georgia.

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“He was an excellent pilot,” Kaplan told Mims. “I don’t know what happened.”

Kaplan said it’s possible Max Cohen suffered a medical problem.

He was not only a pilot, but a dentist who was in practice with his daughter, Sandi. He owned the Cohen Dental Center in Dunwoody.

“They were wonderful people,” Kaplan said, describing Sharon as “a beautiful person inside and out.”

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Their daughter, Sandi, has two little girls and Sharon was “crazy over her two granddaughters.”

She said the couple had a second home on the Georgia coast and made frequent flights there.

Reflecting on the tragedy that killed her friend of more than 45 years, Kaplan said “I’m devastated. I can’t wrap my brain around it.”

Investigators have removed the wreckage from the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to release a preliminary report on the crash in the next two or three weeks. The final report could take at least a year.

No survivors after small plane crashes on Big Creek Greenway in Alpharetta

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