Crash brings battle over pilot’s remains

Family goes to court to decide between cremation or burial

Nissan Giat died on Aug. 28 when the twin engine Aero Commander he was piloting slammed into a public storage facility in Pembroke Park.

His distraught wife, Vivi, knew his final wishes and made arrangements for him to be cremated.

His son, Lee, 22, knew his father’s longtime wishes and wanted him to be buried in accordance with Orthodox Jewish custom.

Now, more than three months after Giat lost his life, his body remains in a freezer at a Pembroke Pines funeral home, waiting in limbo for his wife and his son to settle their differences or have them settled by a judge.

The unusual legal battle pitting a deceased pilot’s son against his stepmom made its way to the Fourth District Court of Appeal, which issued a recent decision sure to make no one happy: Both sides have to come back to court next Monday to plead their case in front of Broward Circuit Judge Jeffrey R. Levenson.

It was Levenson who, in September, ruled that Giat’s wife should have the final say in any disagreement. But attorneys for Giat’s son appealed, arguing that the judge was wrong to make the decision without hearing the evidence from both sides.

For Giat’s son, the stakes are no less than the pilot’s eternal peace.

“Judaism is founded on the premise of a life that exists beyond this world,” said the lawyer, Michael Citron. “There is a soul to that body, and we want that soul to rest.”

Under Orthodox Jewish doctrine, a body must be buried as promptly as possible following death. Cremation is prohibited — the body is not to be mutilated, Citron explained. “Cremation, pulverizing the body to an unrecognizable ash, is the worst possible thing eternally for the deceased.”

The delay in burial goes against Jewish law, too, Citron said, but it is preferable to cremation. “To prevent a further ill, we don’t have a choice.”

Nissan Giat and Vivi married seven years

Nissan Giat and his wife, Vivi, in an undated photo.