Gustavo Deutsch, one the victims, faces the court in 2008 for his responsibility in the 1999 LAPA plane crash (photo: Télam)
A light aircraft crashed yesterday in the private neighbourhood of Nordelta, in Tigre. The pilot —former LAPA owner Gustavo ‘Andy’ Deustch— and his wife died in the accident.
The incident occurred at around 3pm on Sunday, as Deutsch and his wife were flying between a farm in Junín and Aeroparque, in the City of Buenos Aires. The Beechcraft Super King Air 300 crashed against a house in Nordelta, in the northern suburb of Tigre, and damaged two neighbouring properties. All of them were empty.
It is believed that the aircraft suffered a mechanical failure. “Apparently, the pilot tried to land the plane in the [artificial] lake and didn’t make it. That’s why it fell on this house,” said one of the neighbours. The aeroplane impacted on the roof of a house, then it fell on the street that separates two plots of land, and it finally landed on a second house. The fuel tank then exploded, causing a fire that destroyed the house almost completely. The wind caused the fire to also damage a third property.
Emergency services had to treat 14 people, many of them suffering from nervous breakdowns.
Deutsch had been the owner of LAPA airlines, and was prosecuted in the case that investigated the accident that occurred in Aeroparque on 31st August 1999 and which caused the death of 65 people, when a plane from the company failed to take off and crashed. The case was eventually dropped as the statute of limitations expired.
Earlier today, two other light aeroplanes crashed —one in Chos Malal, Neuquén and one in General Villegas, Buenos Aires— though there were no victims.
The post Light Aeroplane Crashes in Nordelta appeared first on The Argentina Independent.