Mumbai plane crash: Lunch break saves 40 labourers at Ghatkopar construction site

Mumbai, June 29: Over 40 labourers at the construction site, where a King Air C-90 private aircraft crashed on Thursday had a lucky escape as they were AWAY on a lunch break.

A shocking video of moments before the chartered plane crash in Mumbai's Ghatkopar has been released on Friday. The video shows the 12-seater plane crashing and bursting into a ball of fire, engulfing five lives within seconds.

The crash claimed five lives: chief pilot Pradeep Rajput, co-pilot Marya Zuberi, aircraft maintenance engineer Surabhi Gupta, aircraft technician Manish Pandey, and a passer-by, suspected to be Kalwa resident Govind Dubey.

Two workers, Lavkush Kumar (21) and Naresh Kumar Nishad (24), were just about to leave for lunch, and were injured in the crash.

But the worst victim was the unborn child of the two-month old pregnant woman engineer aboard the King Air C-90 aircraft.

While Nareshkumar sustained 20 per cent burn injuries on his face and right hand, Lovkush sustained a minor injury. Recollecting the incident, the survivors said that there were around 30 workers on site, at the time of the crash. Since it was lunch time, all had taken a small break. Naresh and Lovkush decided to take a break later wanting to complete their work, which left them both injured.

The plane once belonged to the Uttar Pradesh government and was sold to UY Aviation, a private company.

The aircraft had taken off from the Juhu airstrip on a test flight. It lost control when it was four nautical miles from Juhu, Air Traffic Control (ATC) sources had said.