Mumbai Plane Crash: Aircraft Was on First Test flight for Airworthy Certificate When Tragedy Struck

New Delhi: Four persons on board and one person on the ground were killed when a private aircraft crashed into a building under construction at Ghatkopar in Mumbai on Thursday afternoon.

The King Air C-90 had taken off from the Juhu airstrip on a test flight. It lost control when it was four nautical miles from Juhu, Air Traffic Control (ATC) sources said.

The aircraft had been issued only a temporary airworthy certificate to fly and was on its first test flight for availing an Airworthy Certificate when the tragedy struck.

Here's all we know so far:

Both pilots, Capt Pradeep Rajput and Capt Maria Zuberi, along with aircraft maintenance engineer Surabhi Gupta and junior technician Manish Pandey died on the spot. A construction labourer, Govind Dubey, was killed in the fire that broke out when the jet fuel tank exploded.

The aircraft crashed at a distance of one mile from the Mumbai airport’s main runway, just after it had turned towards the runway at Juhu.

Flight technician Manish Pandey got married just six months ago. Since he had been working on this particular aircraft for almost six months, so he had to be on board during the test flight.

Aircraft maintenance engineer Surabhi Gupta was married for only about a year. Her husband rushed to Mumbai from Kolkata soon after he was informed about the tragedy.

Close to 35 workers at the construction site had a lucky escape as they had stepped away for lunch when the crash happened.

DGCA officials have traced the Aircraft Voice Data Recorder (black box), which will help them piece together the events that led to the crash.

The aircraft had been issued only a temporary airworthy certificate to fly and was on its first test flight for availing an Airworthy Certificate when the tragedy struck.

According to sources in the Mumbai Police, the aircraft was undergoing repairs and maintenance work for the past one year.

A statement issued by the Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday evening read, “The aircraft last flew on 22 Feb 2008 when it was with UP Govt. The aircraft was later bought by M/s UY Aviation in 2014."

Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu has asked the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to conduct an investigation into the plane crash.

This was the second air accident in Maharashtra in two days after a Sukhoi Su-30M aircraft crashed near Nashik on Wednesday.