What to Know
- A small twin-engine Piper PA 34 plane crashed in East Hartford on Oct. 11, 2016 around 3:30 p.m.
- Arian Prevella, the flight instructor struggled with flying student, Feras Freitekh over the controls
- The documents state that Freitekh was laughing and joking, making Prevella uncomfortable, the instructor told police.
An attorney representing the surviving pilot in that deadly plane crash in East Hartford believes police violated department policy when they released a report on Tuesday.
NBC Connecticut has repeatedly reached out to American Flight Academy owner and flight instructor, Arian Prevalla and his attorney, New Haven-based Kevin Deghani.
Prevalla suffered serious burns after the plane came crashing down near Pratt and Whitney on October 11, 2016. Early on federal investigators called the crash “intentional.”
Freitekh did not survive, and according to East Hartford police reports, Prevalla told police police Freitekh was doing everything "wrong" the day of the crash, laughing and joking, which made Prevalla feel uncomfortable.
Prevalla said he had to scream at his student and even hit his left hand, to give him the controls, as Freitekh fought with him.
Local
A doctor at the hospital told East Hartford police that according to Prevalla, the Freitekh was, "making mistakes and may have done this on purpose."
An e-mail from attorney Kevin Deghani said police releasing this report seems to be a violation of department policy.
Deghani further said they have no comment on the investigation but going on to point out that, "some of the contents of the documents you forwarded me contain false and defamatory statements against Mr. Prevalla, which we are very disturbed about,” Deghani stated.
NBC Connecticut has asked East Hartford police to respond to Deghani's allegations.
The FBI calls this an open-classified investigation. The NTSB had no conclusion on their report, and placed it in the hands of the FBI. NBC Connecticut reached out on Wednesday.
