DAY AFTER TRAGEDY, MOURNING RELATIVES RAISE QUESTIONS
A day after a Beechcraft-built King Air C90 crashed in Mumbai's Ghatkopar suburb killing five persons, several questions pertaining to the plane's safety, airworthiness and related issues cropped up here on Friday.
While the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has initiated a preliminary enquiry, the kin of the four killed crew members have raised doubts whether the aircraft was fit to fly in the first place, given its age, past record and the inclement weather conditions on Thursday afternoon.
The 26-year-old aircraft was sold by the Uttar Pradesh Government in 2014 to Mumbaibased UY Aviation Pvt Ltd (UYAPL), belonging to gutka king Deepak Kothari.
Advocate Pradeep Kathuria, the husband of the killed co-pilot, Mariya Zubedi, has reiterated that his wife had mentioned to him that Thursday’s weather conditions were not conducive for a test flight to be conducted for a small aircraft like this.
Independent aviation sources also confirmed to IANS that given the rainy, windy and overcast sky weather experienced in Mumbai and surroundings, such a test flight mission could be "very risky."
Speaking to media persons, the family members raised issues of whether the aircraft was fit for flying or had an "airworthiness certificate", who authorized the first test flight after a long bout of maintenance works on it, and who cleared the flight despite the prevalent weather conditions.
The grieving family members raised doubts on the aircraft, with Rajput's relative, Kulvinder Chauhan claiming that Rajput had said that test flight had to be done Thursday itself, though the relatives were against it owing to bad weather conditions.