Ghatkopar crash: Devendra Fadnavis says FIR will be lodged against plane owners if they forced pilot into test flight

Nagpur: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Wednesday said that an FIR would be registered against the owners of the aircraft which crashed in Mumbai last month if they were found to have forced the pilot to conduct a test flight despite adverse opinion. [caption id=“attachment_4622971” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Rescue personnel after the plane crash in Mumbai’s Ghatkopar. PTI[/caption] Fadnavis was replying to a question by Congress’s Vijay Wadettiwar in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. A twin-engine King Air C 90 aircraft crashed at an under-construction building in Ghatkopar in east Mumbai on June 28, killing five persons including both the pilots. The aircraft was owned by UY Aviation. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) was probing the incident, the chief minister said. “We would take action against the owner in case he is found to have forced the pilot to carry out the test despite adverse remarks (by pilots or technical experts),” he said. Prabhat Kathuria, the husband of Marya Zuberi, the co-pilot of the aircraft, had alleged after the crash that she had told him, before leaving the house that day, that weather was not favourable. Zuberi had expected that the test flight would get cancelled, Kathuria had claimed, demanding a probe.