A little while before a small Beechcraft C90 crashed at a Mumbai suburb this afternoon, the pilot veered in the sky to avoid hitting any residential building, saving many lives, according to media reports.
The plane took off from the Juhu airstrip for a test flight, with two pilots and two maintenance engineers. It crashed around 1 pm, killing all four on board and a man on the ground.
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The crash site was near to buildings under construction, so there were very few people there at the time.
“Initially we assumed an electric box in the under construction building must have caught fire but when we checked out the spot, we found the charred body of a man who apparently was on a bike when the plane crashed,”
an eyewitness of the incident reportedly said.
It took over an hour to put out the fire.
Praful Patel praised the pilot, saying she had avoided a bigger tragedy at the cost of her own life.
Saddened to hear about the unfortunate incident at #ghatkopar as Charter plane crashes in an open area. Salute to the pilot who showed presence of mind to avoid a big mishap, saving many lives at the cost of her own life. #RIP to all the 5 Dead. My deepest condolences.
— Praful Patel (@praful_patel) June 28, 2018
The 12-seater-plane was reportedly 20 years old and was sold by the Uttar Pradesh government to a Mumbai-based company, UY Aviation, in 2014.
A fire brigade official said, “Our control room received a call at 1.15 pm informing a plane crash. Our jawans were immediately rushed to the site to launch the rescue operation. Four fire engines and as many water tankers were rushed to put out the fire.”
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation sent a team to investigate what went wrong.
“The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau will conduct a detailed probe into the crash. A DGCA team is already on its way to the spot,”
Director General of Civil Aviation BS Bhullar reportedly said.
We offer our deepest condolences to the Bravehearts.
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