On Tuesday, a Piper PA 34 came crashing down on the streets of East Hartford, Connecticut, bursting into flames, killing the pilot, and hurting three others, including passengers in a nearby minivan. Now, the FBI is investigating the crash as intentional.
The small plane was piloted by Feras M. Freitekh, a 28-year-old Jordanian national who came to America four years ago on a student visa for flight school. His flight instructor, Arian Prevalla, miraculously survived but is being treated at the hospital with serious burns and other injuries, according to The Daily Mail. He told investigators that he and Freitekh were arguing just before the crash and that the pilot did it “on purpose.” The instructor said Freitekh no longer wanted to fly the plane.
Curiously, the crash site was “near aerospace manufacturer and defense contractor Pratt & Whitney's headquarters,” the report notes. However, a spokesman for the company said the crash is unrelated to their business.
Investigators across several agencies aren’t ruling anything out at this point, but officials say they have found no evidence of terrorist activities at Freitekh’s Connecticut apartment so far.
Just after the crash, the pilot’s friends took to Facebook to “forgive” him. The first by Abu Taj:
And then another by Saifeddin M. AlHussein who added, “May God have mercy on him and forgive him.”
Daily Mail gave more details on Freitekh:
Freitekh, who is listed as living in Orlando Hills, Illinois, around 35 miles from Chicago, has lived in the United States for around four years. Just last year he posted on Facebook a picture of a heart next to the word U.S.A.
Freitekh came to the U.S. from Jordan in 2012 on an international student M-1 visa to go to flight school.
He later attended a language school in Toledo, Ohio on an F-1 student visa before returning to an M-1, a temporary visa for vocational schools, so he could study at the Connecticut Flight Academy in Hartford.
Federal Aviation Administration records show he was issued a private pilot certificate on May 29, 2015, and was certified to fly a single-engine plane.
