It took days to clean up the damage after a small plane crashed in the middle of Main Street in East Hartford in October, and six months later questions remain about who is footing the bill.
East Hartford police were on sight for days until the crash was cleaned up and that part of busy Main Street finally re-opened.
Now city officials are looking for tens of thousands of dollars in reimbursement.
Trent Sullivan, the Town of East Hartford Risk Manager, said the cleanup cost about $40,000.
The deadly plane crash October 11, 2016 involving American Flight Academy Owner Arian Prevalla and student pilot Feras Freitekh. Freitekh was killed.
"Primarily it's overtime costs, so it's personnel costs responding to the event and then manning the event and keeping the area safe,” Sullivan added.
The biggest bill, at nearly $30,000.00, is for police presence, which lasted several days. The crash happened right around shift change, late in the afternoon. Next, just north of $7,000, was DPW’s clean up and repair efforts. Followed by the East Hartford Fire Department's over-time costs at $3,800.
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Sullivan said he's already been in contact with AFA Insurance Carrier Old Republic Aerospace Inc. In Maryland.
“I sent an email with all the itemized costs with the expectations that the investigation would take quite a bit of time with the hope that maybe we would get some of the costs returned,” Sullivan said.
If the insurance carrier doesn’t reimburse the town, taxpayers could be on the hook for the costs.
Earlier this week, the Troubleshooters discovered a $130,000.00 bill from Eversource to AFA to repair poles and wires that broke in the crash. And on Thursday, federal agents served a search warrant at the flight school. Hauling away boxes of records, focusing on AFA’s maintenance hangar.
Early on federal investigators called this crash intentional. The school's owner told authorities about a fight in the cockpit before the crash.
The final FAA report has been released.
Neither Arian Prevalla's attorney or the insurance carrier has returned NBC Connecticut’s calls for comment.
