Walton flyers: Trainee pilot unhurt in crash

Falcon Complex crash comes five months after deaths of two pilots in training flight.

LAHORE:

A young pilot escaped unharmed after she crashed a training aircraft in the Falcon Complex housing society on Thursday, less than five months since an instructor and a learner were killed in a similar crash in Model Town.

An eyewitness said that the one-seat ultralight aircraft hit the fence on the boundary wall of Falcon Complex in Gulberg in the afternoon before crashing near a jogging track, which was not being used at the time.

The pilot, 28-year-old Fakhrunnisa, was unhurt apart from some minor cuts on her face. ASP Chaudhry Muhammad Anwar said that reports that she had jumped from the plane shortly before it crashed were false. He said it was “miraculous” that she had not been badly hurt. He said that the plane may have crashed due to heavy winds.

A witness said that the pilot was able to come out of the plane on her own. She then called some relatives who picked her up from the scene.

The wreckage of the plane, which belonged to the Ultralight and Sports Flying Club, littered the scene of the crash. Officials of the Civil Aviation Authority and Lahore Flying Club also visited the site.

On February 23, instructor Anita Sikandar Qureshi and trainee pilot Waqar Asif Sheikh were killed when their AP-BCS Cessna 150 crashed at a property in Model Town. That plane had also taken off from the Walton airstrip.

Following that crash, a petition was filed in the Lahore High Court seeking a ban on trainee aircraft flights over residential areas. The court had disposed of the petition while directing the officers concerned to adopt precautionary measures.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 6^th, 2012.