Cessna aircraft crash: DGCA finds one of 2 pilots not authorised to be in plane NSCN-IM member held in Arunachal MLA killing case

NEW DELHI: Aviation regulator DGCA has found that one of the two pilots on board Cessna 172 aircraft, which fatally crashed at Vikarabad in Telangana on Sunday, was not authorised to be in the plane, a senior official said on Monday.

After a preliminary probe, the regulator also issued a show cause notice to the pilot training academy, Wings Aviation Private Limited, and barred its Deputy Chief Flight Instructor (Dy. CFI) Raunak Cyril from training exercise, the official added.

The academy has been given seven days to respond to the notice, the official noted.

The two pilots of the academy - Amanpreet Kaur and Prakash Vishal - died Sunday afternoon after their Cessna 172 aircraft, headed from Begumpet in Telangana to Gobur in Karnataka, crashed in cotton fields of Sultanpur village in Vikarabad district amidst heavy rains.

"Their flight was authorized by Cyril. As per the authorization book entry, the flight was to be operated by Kaur only," the senior official of DGCA said.

"The presence of another pilot (Vishal) shows that Cyril failed to perform his duties as laid down in training and procedure manual of the academy. Therefore, he has been barred from functioning as Dy. CFI of the academy until further orders," the official added.

According to Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), Wings Aviation Private Limited has a licence to function as a flying training academy till October 26, 2020.

The show cause notice was issued by the DGCA as the "lapse" on the part of Dy. CFI also raised "serious concerns about academy's workings", the official said. NEW DELHI: The National Investigation Agency has arrested a self-styled sergeant major of NSCN-IM group in connection with the killing of Arunachal Pradesh MLA Tirong Aboh in May this year, an official spokesman said on Monday.

The 37-year-old Ellie Ketok was arrested on Sunday from Nagaland's Dimapur by a joint team of the terror probe agency and the Army, the spokesman said. He said the accused was a part of killing team, and actually fired on Aboh and others on May 21 this year.

The NIA has earlier arrested five persons - Sethok Kangnong, Napong Jenpi alias Jenpi, Jai Kishan Sharma, Luckin Mashangva and Yangte Josaham - in this case. The Arunachal Pradesh government had decided to handover the killing of Aboh, an MLA from Khonsa West, and nine others by suspected NSCNIM militants to the NIA. NPP MLA Aboh, his son and nine others were killed by suspected Naga militants on May 21.