Pilot
taking 'selfies' before fatal Colorado crash: report
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[February 04, 2015]
(Reuters) - The pilot of a small plane was
taking selfie pictures with a cellphone on a series of short flights
around a Colorado airport in 2014 before he crashed on one of the
jaunts, killing himself and a passenger, federal investigators found.
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The National Transportation Safety Board said the 29-year-old
pilot of the Cessna 150K plane lost control in the crash near
Watkins, Colorado.
"Contributing to the accident was the pilot's distraction due to his
cellphone use while maneuvering at low altitude," the NTSB said in a
report issued last week.
The Adams County coroner's office has identified the pilot as
Amritpal Singh and the passenger as 31-year-old Jatinder Singh. It
was unclear whether the two were related.
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A GoPro camera was mounted on the windshield of the plane facing
into the cockpit, so it captured the actions of the pilot and his
passengers on a series of short flights around the Front Range
Airport, which is less than 30 miles east of Denver, the NTSB report
said.
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The GoPro camera did not capture the flight that resulted in the
crash, but in recordings of previous flights that day the pilot and
a number of his passengers were seen taking selfie pictures on their
cellphones and the pilot was observed texting on his phone, the NTSB
report said.
(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Scott
Malone and Doina Chiacu)
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