Four people were presumed dead after a private plane — carrying a prominent East Hampton builder who crafted luxury mansions for Martha Stewart, Billy Joel and others — crashed into the Atlantic off Amagansett, LI, on Saturday. 
 
 Hamptons “Builder to the Stars” Ben Krupinski, 70, was feared among the dead, along with his wife, Bonnie Bistrian Krupinski, 70, and their 22-year-old grandson, Will Maerov. East Hampton police confirmed the trio were aboard the flight, along with 47-year-old pilot Jon Dollard. 
 
 All are believed to have perished in the crash, sources said. 
 
 The Piper PA-31 Navajo plane went down about a mile off shore near Indian Wells Beach at about 2:50 p.m., officials told The Post. 
 
 The cause of the crash is under investigation, but local pilot Bill Gardiner noted that the weather had turned stormy. 
 
 “There was a very nasty thunderstorm going on. It was unexpected. There were very strong downdrafts.” 
 
 The Krupinskis had owned the plane since at least the 1980s, Gardiner added. 
 
 The couple’s real-estate empire is worth a reported $150 million, and included the popular East Hampton restaurant Citta Nuova, where grieving workers and patrons gathered Saturday night in shock, some in tears. 
 
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 The couple, known and loved by locals as “Bennie and Bonnie” — high-school sweethearts well known for their charitable endeavors — had been expected there for dinner that night. 
 
 Instead, the restaurant was shuttered, a sign explaining that the closing was “due to a family emergency.” 
 
 “They were generous beyond belief,” sobbed longtime employee Jeanne Nielsen. 
 
 “They were very philanthropic . . . their grandson Will had worked here for the summer in the past. He was a student at Georgetown,” she said. 
 
 “Their granddaughter, Charlotte, is 15 or 16. She was not on the plane. She was going to work here this summer.” 
 
 The family “flew all the time,” Nielsen said. “They were coming here for dinner tonight, and then going to the movies. Their plane was supposed to land at 3.” 
 
 She added, still crying, “They were together forever. They were the couple that was together ­forever.” 
 
 As for the restaurant’s workers, Nielsen said, “We’re broken. All of us.” 
 
 Cops blockading the couple’s home on Three Mile Harbor Road asked a reporter to give the family privacy. 
 
 Two bodies were ­recovered by Saturday night, the U.S. Coast Guard said. 
 
 One was recovered by an East Hampton lifeguard using a Jet Ski, and the other by the Coast Guard, an agency spokeswoman for the Coast Guard told Newsday. 
 
 A pocketbook was plucked from the water by commercial fisherman Dave Aripotch, who told Newsday he responded to the scene after mariners were given notice of the crash. 
 
 “I wish we could have got there sooner,” he said of seeing a piece of the plane’s nose in the water. 
 
 Ben Krupinski, an East Hampton native, pilot and golf lover, rose to prominence building lavish homes for Stewart, Joel and rocker Roger Waters of Pink Floyd. 
 
 He counted moguls such as Leon Black among his clients — but would pitch in and repair a broken sidewalk out of his own pocket, said those who knew him. 
 
 Fellow developer Joe Farrell called Krupinski “a legendary builder.” 
 
 “Truly a great builder that built the biggest and most expensive homes,” Farrell said. “I admired and respected him very much. 
 
 “His wife Bonnie was a Bistrian, and a huge land owner. Bonnie sold me many lots,” Farrell recalled. 
 
 “Ben used to lend me his helicopter. He was very nice to me even though we were competitors.” 
 
 Famous adman Jerry Della Femina once told The New York Times, “In East Hampton, Ben’s the star. You walk into a restaurant and everyone’s looking up and saying, ‘It’s Ben! It’s Ben Krupinski!’” 
 
 East Hampton gallery owner Terry Wallace said Ben Krupinski would often be at the controls of the plane. 
 
 “A lot of times he flies his own plane. He does a lot of things in the village,” Wallace said. 
 
 “He just finished the Ladies’ Village Improvement Society. If there’s a problem like the sidewalks, he’ll just fix it for nothing. He does a lot of things for nothing,” Wallace said. 
 
 “They’re good people.” 
 
 Krupinski was so close with lifestyles queen Stewart, “he took his plane and got her” when she was released from prison in 2005, ­Wallace added. 
 
 Local resident Bob Miller said, “It’s so sad. It was Ben and Bonnie? That’s so sad. He’s been very involved for decades. Incredibly highly regarded. He’s been a builder out here for a long, long time. I’ve never heard a bad thing about him out here.” 
 
 “We are stricken by this loss,” said Coast Guard Capt. Kevin B. Reed, commander Sector Long Island Sound. 
 
 “Our deepest sympathies go out to the families and loved ones of the two recovered individuals.” 
 
 Krupinski’s only child, Laura Krupinski, 52, is a former Wilhelmina model who once publicly accused her father of having an affair with Stewart. 
 
 Grandson Maerov had just started a job with ad agency Chandelier Creative, according to a post on his Facebook page. 
 
 The crown jewel of Ben Krupinski’s real-estate empire was East Hampton Point, a five-acre property with a 400-seat restaurant facing Three Mile Harbor. 
 
 It included a full-service marina, boatyard, 14 guest houses, a pool and tennis courts. 
 
 In 2015 he began building for Waters a 14,000-square-foot house with a swimming pool, a pool house and a sunken tennis court. 
 
 Among the properties on which Ben worked for Stewart was a cottage and a 24-room manse, for which he was said to have created a hidden kitchen-exhaust system. 
 
 In 1989, Krupinski renovated Bill Joel’s 12,000-square-foot Amagansett home. 
 
 Saturday’s tragedy was the second small-plane crash on Long Island in less than a week. On Wednesday, a World War II-era plane plummeted into the woods of Melville, killing its only ­occupant. ||||| EAST HAMPTON, N.Y. (AP) — A prominent builder for celebrities' homes was identified by authorities Sunday as being one of four people on board a small plane that crashed off the coast of Long Island, killing two and leaving two missing. 
 
 East Hampton Town Police identified the people as 70-year-old builder Bernard Krupinski, 70-year-old Bonnie Krupinski, 22-year-old William Maerov and 47-year-old Jon Dollard. 
 
 The Federal Aviation Administration said the Piper PA31 aircraft that the four people were in went down about 3 p.m. Saturday. The crash scene was about a mile and a half (2.4 kilometers) south of East Hampton. Saturday's weather included severe thunderstorms in the area. 
 
 Two bodies were recovered, and the Coast Guard on Sunday resumed the search for the other two people before suspending it. It was not immediately clear which of the four passengers had been recovered. 
 
 The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the cause of the crash. 
 
 Eastern Long Island is known for its celebrity presence, with many wealthy and prominent individuals spending time there, particularly in the summer months. 
 
 Small planes and helicopters are popular, as a way to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Long Island Expressway. 
 
 Bernard Krupinski grew up in East Hampton before starting his business, Ben Krupinski Builders, there. As a builder, his clients included Martha Stewart and Billy Joel. ||||| KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Shadowed by two U.S. fighter jets, a small plane with its windows frosted over and its pilot apparently incapacitated flew a ghostly 1,700-mile journey down the Atlantic Coast and beyond before finally crashing in the waters off Jamaica. The fate of the two or more people aboard was not immediately known. 
 
 In this Sept. 18, 2012 photo, Jane Glazer, owner of QCI Direct of Chili, heads back to her seat after winning a Rochester Business Ethics Award at the Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, N.Y. Glazer... (Associated Press) 
 
 In this June 24, 2010 photo, developer Larry Glazer gestures toward a building to be demolished on Alexander Street in Rochester, N.Y. Glazer and wife, Jane, were aboard their small plane, which took... (Associated Press) 
 
 Maj. Basil Jarrett of the Jamaican Defense Force said the plane went down about 14 miles (22 kilometers) northeast of the northern coastal town of Port Antonio and the military sent two aircraft and a dive team to investigate the area where the plane went down. 
 
 A U.S. C-130 aircraft is also flying over the crash site and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter is on the way, according to Guard Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios. 
 
 "None of us have found anything at this time," Rios said. 
 
 The single-engine turboprop Socata TBM700, which took off at 8:45 a.m. EDT from the Greater Rochester International Airport in New York, was carrying a prominent real estate developer and his wife, the couple's son said. 
 
 Rick Glazer said that his parents, Larry and Jane Glazer, were both licensed pilots. He said he can't confirm they were killed, adding that "we know so little." 
 
 Larry Glazer ran the development firm Buckingham Properties. He owned the high performance plane he was flying and was president of the TBM Owners and Pilots Association and active in Rochester civic affairs. 
 
 Public officials who knew the Glazers issued condolence messages centered on their role helping revitalize Rochester. 
 
 "The Glazers were innovative and generous people who were committed to revitalizing downtown Rochester and making the city they loved a better place for all," said Gov. Andrew Cuomo. "I offer my deepest condolences to the Glazers' family and friends during this difficult and trying time." 
 
 Air traffic controllers were last able to contact the pilot of the plane at 10 a.m. EDT, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement. The agency said it had not confirmed the number of people aboard. 
 
 The pilot had filed a flight plan with the FAA to fly from Rochester to Naples, Florida. Fighter jets were scrambled at 11:30 a.m. EDT and followed the plane until it reached Cuban airspace, when they peeled off, said Preston Schlachter, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command & US Northern Command. FlightAware, an aviation tracking website, showed the plane over the Caribbean south of Cuba at about 2 p.m. EDT. 
 
 It finally came down after flying more than 1,700 miles (2,700 kilometers). 
 
 The fighter jet pilots trailing the plane reported that they couldn't see into its interior because the windows were frosted or fogged, said Schlachter. 
 
 FlightAware identified the plane's tail number as N900KN. FAA records show the plane, a model that sells new for $3.5 million in its standard version, is owned by a company based at the same address as a real estate firm in Rochester. 
 
 The incident is the second time in less than a week that private pilot has become unresponsive during a flight. On Saturday, a pilot lost consciousness and his plane drifted into restricted airspace over the nation's capital. Fighter jets were also launched in that case and stayed with the small aircraft until it ran out of fuel and crashed Saturday into the Atlantic. 
 
 Cases of pilots becoming unresponsive while their planes wander the sky are unusual, with probably not much more than a handful of such incidents over the last decade, said aviation safety expert John Goglia. Sometimes the incidents are due to a pilot becoming incapacitated by a heart attack or stroke, but more often the problem is insufficient cabin pressurization that causes the pilot and any passengers to pass out, he said. 
 
 Pilots are supposed to check that the cabin pressurization is correctly set before takeoff, but there have been cases where they have forgotten to do that or the pressurization level has been improperly set, said Goglia, a former National Transportation Safety Board member. If cabin pressure drops too low, there won't be enough oxygen per cubic foot in the cabin and any people aboard will lose consciousness, he said. In such cases, it's likely that those on board will die from loss of oxygen before the plane runs out of fuel and crashes, he said. 
 
 Mechanical problems or a window or fuselage leak can also lead to rapid cabin depressurization. When that happens, the time of useful consciousness a pilot has in which to react is measured in seconds, Goglia said. 
 
 In 1999, the pilots of a Learjet carrying professional golfer Payne Stewart from Orlando, Florida, to Texas became unresponsive. The plane took a turn and wander all the way to South Dakota before running out of fuel and crashing into a field west if Aberdeen. Stewart and five others on board were killed. An NTSB investigation blamed the accident on depressurization. 
 
 ___ 
 
 Joan Lowy reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Ben Fox in Miami and Carolyn Thompson in Buffalo, NY, and Judith Ausuebel in New York contributed to this report.
– A go-to builder for celebrity Hamptons getaways is feared dead after a plane went down off the coast of Amagansett, Long Island on Saturday. Ben Krupinski, whose clients included Martha Stewart and Billy Joel, was aboard the Piper PA-31 Navajo along with his wife, Bonnie, and grandson Will Maerov, 22. The pilot was 47-year-old Jon Dollard, who authorities say flew the Krupinski's plane into an unexpected storm, per ABC 7. However, the NTSB has not yet determined the exact cause of the crash. Two bodies were recovered and the Coast Guard on Sunday resumed the search for the other two people before suspending it, the AP reports. It was not immediately clear which of the four passengers had been recovered. Bernard Krupinski grew up in East Hampton before starting his business, Ben Krupinski Builders, there. He and Bonnie were prominent members of the community, where they were beloved for their well-known philanthropy. According to the New York Post, the couple owned a real-estate empire worth some $150 million. Eastern Long Island is known for its celebrity presence, with many wealthy and prominent individuals spending time there, particularly in the summer months. Small planes and helicopters are popular, as a way to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the Long Island Expressway.