{"id":206538,"date":"2026-04-22T22:13:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:13:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206538\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T22:13:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T22:13:36","slug":"queens-restaurateur-erects-massive-400k-shrine-for-saint-he-says-saved-him-from-fatal-plane-crash","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/206538\/","title":{"rendered":"Queens restaurateur erects massive $400K shrine for saint he says saved him from fatal plane crash"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"An<\/p>\n

An image collage containing 3 images, Image 1 shows Joe Oppedisano view of Main Wreckage as Found, Image 2 shows A view of the shrine, Image 3 shows Joe Oppedisano tears up while speaking inside his restaurant, Il Bacco, in Little Neck, N.Y. on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. <\/p>\n

He\u2019s serving up a Holy Order.<\/p>\n

A Queens restaurateur who survived a fatal plane crash is erecting a massive shrine to the saint he said saved him from a watery death.<\/p>\n

Giuseppe \u201cJoe\u201d Oppedisano had been dreaming of erecting the Padre Pio Shrine since the Italian saint appeared to him while in a morphine-induced delirium in the\u00a0wake of the 2020 tragedy that left his entire body broken\u00a0<\/a>and one of his best friends dead.<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/p>\n

Joe Oppedisano tears up as he recalls his brush with death in 2020. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still alive and kicking. In order to get, you got to give. And that\u2019s what I did,\u201d Oppedisano, 67, told The Post.<\/p>\n

The massive shrine sits around the corner from Oppedisano\u2019s Little Neck restaurant, Il Bacco \u2014 which was the scene of the\u00a0infamous Covid conga line\u00a0<\/a>in 2020 during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The Catholic sanctuary includes smaller statues of famous saints like the Mother Mary and Saint Anthony, but centers around a 500-pound bronze effigy of Padre Pio, whom Oppedisano credits\u00a0with\u00a0his life.<\/p>\n

Oppedisano was piloting his single-engine Cessna\u00a0 on Oct. 4, 2020 with longtime friends Jose Urena and his girlfriend, Maggie O\u2019Neill, on board after a lunch in Nantucket and\u00a0was preparing to land in the East River when a boat suddenly blocked his path.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The massive shrine will be unveiled this Sunday at a blessing ceremony. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n

The plane skipped across the\u00a0water and smashed into a concrete pier before splitting\u00a0into pieces.<\/p>\n

Witnesses\u00a0jumped\u00a0to pull Oppedisano and Urena, who were in the cockpit, from the wreckage. Both were rushed to the hospital in critical condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was a mess. And I had broken\u00a0legs, broken knee, broken back, broken ribs,\u00a0broken tongue. I was on strictly morphine. I\u2019m just hallucinating, I\u2019m in la-la land,\u201d Oppedisano said.<\/p>\n

In his daze, Oppedisano called his wife and daughter at 3 a.m.,\u00a0who\u00a0recalled their loved one rambling for several minutes and repeatedly asking whether his other passengers had survived.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The 500-pound bronze statue is currently sitting in the Il Bacco basement. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n

Urena was injured but\u00a0alive \u2014\u00a0but 61-year-old O\u2019Neill had been killed.<\/p>\n

Tina Marie couldn\u2019t break the news to her father, instead saying, \u201cYou really just have to worry about you right now. Just focus on getting healthy and getting strong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was almost like his whole aura shifted. His whole energy shifted, the tone of his voice, and he was like, \u2018Tina Maria, I\u2019m going to be just fine,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cHe goes, \u2018Padre Pio is here with me right now \u2026 he told me that I\u2019m going to be okay.\u2019 And I remember I just lost it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Oppedisano,<\/p>\n

Oppedisano, right, and Jose Urena, left, survived the crash. Obtained by NY Post<\/p>\n

With tears in his eyes, Oppedisano recalled seeing the saint standing in his hospital room with him. The figure was neither touching nor speaking with him, but the restaurateur felt an overwhelming sense of calm and a \u201cchill.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not a holy person. I\u2019m a sinner like everybody else, but it was something that I feel goes right through my body,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Oppedisano has\u00a0gone under the knife\u00a028 times since the crash, including for a leg-lengthening\u00a0surgery\u00a0after\u00a0the impact of\u00a0the accident\u00a0resulted in\u00a0a 1.5-inch difference between his legs.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The plane smashed into a concrete pier near Oppedisano\u2019s home. FAA<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m all even now!\u201d he promised.<\/p>\n

The restaurateur feels as though he owes his life to the dead religious figure, and\u00a0has made\u00a0annual pilgrimages to see his body at its resting place in southern Italy.<\/p>\n

It was during a 2023 trip that Oppedisano bought the 6-foot-tall statue.<\/p>\n

Tina Marie spearheaded the Padre Pio Shrine of Little Neck non-profit, which crowdsourced more than $400,000 from the community to build the shrine on a lot that the family initially planned to use for restaurant parking.<\/p>\n

Missing from the shrine, however, is a memorial to or mention of O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had two sons \u2026 They\u2019re upset with me, like it was my fault that she died,\u201d Oppedisano said,\u00a0adding that neither he nor Urena has spoken to the pair since the accident.<\/p>\n

A\u00a0National Transportation Safety Board investigation listed<\/a>\u00a0poor pilot judgment as the cause of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\"Tina<\/p>\n

Tina Marie helped fundraise $400,000 for the shrine. Heather Khalifa for NY Post<\/p>\n

The O\u2019Neill family declined to comment when reached by The Post.<\/p>\n

Urena, 72, called the accident a \u201cfluke\u201d and said he and\u00a0Oppedisano, whom he shares a new plane with,\u00a0still take to the skies together at least once a week.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0for Padre Pio, we wouldn\u2019t be here,\u201d said Urena, of North Flushing.<\/p>\n

Although the shrine is Catholic in nature, Oppedisano says the spot will be open to all religions and neighbors as a daily accessible reflective community space.<\/p>\n

It will officially be unveiled at a blockbuster blessing ceremony this weekend, which the Oppedisanos expect to draw\u00a0some\u00a05,000 neighbors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An image collage containing 3 images, Image 1 shows Joe Oppedisano view of Main Wreckage as Found, Image…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":206539,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[42401,81889,81888,81891,9,24,35913,63,81892,81890,81887,122,124,123,22224],"class_list":{"0":"post-206538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-heather-khalifa","9":"tag-joe-oppedisano","10":"tag-jose-urena","11":"tag-maggie-oneill","12":"tag-new-york","13":"tag-new-york-city","14":"tag-ny-post","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-oppedisano","17":"tag-padre-pio","18":"tag-padre-pio-shrine","19":"tag-queens","20":"tag-queens-headlines","21":"tag-queens-news","22":"tag-restaurateur"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206538\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}