One of 2 pilots not authorised to be on crashed plane

New Delhi, October 7

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 on 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 amid heavy rains.

“Their flight was authorised by Cyril. As per the authorisation 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 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. — PTI