Fatal Plane Crash Is The Second In Five Months For Flight School

Feb. 23--The small plane that crashed Wednesday in a marsh near Tweed-New Haven Airport during a training flight, killing one man and seriously injuring another, was owned by the same company that had a plane crash in East Hartford last year, federal records show.

The Piper PA-38, a single-engine plane, was owned by International Aviation LLC, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. The company's president, Arian Prevalla, was the flight instructor who survived the fiery crash in East Hartford in October that killed a student pilot at Prevalla's American Flight Academy.

Tim Larson, executive director of Tweed-New Haven, said those in the downed plane Wednesday were a student and an instructor from American Flight Academy.

Investigators said it was not clear late Wednesday who was at the plane controls or what caused the crash.

Kevin Dehghani, a lawyer representing American Flight Academy, declined to discuss the crash.

"Our thoughts are with the instructor and the student, but we have no comment at this time," Dehghani said.

A message left with the academy was not returned.

Police said the man killed in the crash was Pablo Campos Isona, 31, of East Haven. The injured man was not identified Wednesday.

Isona was halfway through his training to be a pilot when the crash occurred, his nephew Wil Gonzalez told The Courant Wednesday.

"This was something he wanted since we were young," Gonzalez said of his uncle, who was one year older. Isona had been working at Robinson Aviation at Tweed-New Haven.

"He was refueling planes and doing that type of work," Gonzalez said.

He remembered his uncle as a studious, hardworking man dedicated to his family.

"I can't even say enough good things about him. He was my moral compass. ... He was like a brother to me," Gonzalez said.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA are investigating and officials said they were working with the insurance company and salvage company to recover the wreckage.

The first 911 calls about the crash came in just before 10 a.m. from people who saw the plane go down, East Haven Mayor Joseph A. Maturo said.

The plane crashed about 25 yards southeast of runway two in East Haven, Maturo said. First responders took 15 minutes to locate the downed plane in a marshy area off the runway.

"It was about 2 feet of water and ice ... and then we had to break our way through the grass," fire Chief Douglas Jackson said of getting to the crash, showing signs of grass and mud on his boots and pants.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane fall from the sky. A 911 caller from the Dean Street area of New Haven said: "That thing just came right down."

Paul D'Agostino, who lives on Roses Farm Road in East Haven, said he saw the plane and knew something was wrong.

"I looked up at the plane and I immediately knew something was wrong," D'Agostino said. "The angle of the plane was wrong. It was way off from the runway. It did a nosedive about a quarter-mile up, straight into the marsh."

D'Agostino called 911 and rushed toward the crash scene, but couldn't get through the thick mud.

The American Flight Academy has operated out of Tweed-New Haven Airport, on the New Haven-East Haven border, for about two years, Larson said, adding that it also operates out of Brainard Airport in Hartford.

George Arthur of Madison, who said he has flown with the academy since April, visited the scene Wednesday afternoon to learn what happened. He said that in his time with the academy, he had flown the plane that crashed Wednesday a number of times and hadn't noticed any problems.

Wednesday's crash was the second in five years in the area. In August 2013, a plane on its way to Tweed crashed into houses on Charter Oak Avenue in East Haven, killing two children in a house and the pilot and his son, who had been touring colleges.

Another small plane crashed on its approach to Tweed in 1993, killing four people on board.

The East Hartford crash last October occurred near the property of military jet engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, fueling speculation that it was an act of terrorism. But federal investigators said it appeared that the student pilot, Feras Freitekh, 28, argued with Prevalla, the instructor, and struggled for control of the aircraft in an effort to take his own life.

Authorities have told The Courant that Freitekh, who was from Jordan, was distraught and erratic in the days before the crash.

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