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Accident investigation report completed and information captured
Narrative: On October 11, 2016, about 1530 eastern daylight time, a Piper PA-34-200 twin-engine airplane, N15294, was destroyed when it impacted terrain near Hartford-Brainard Airport (HFD), Hartford, Connecticut. The flight instructor was seriously injured, and the private pilot was fatally injured. The airplane was registered to International Aviation, LLC, and operated by American Flight Academy as a 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 91 instructional flight. Visual meteorological conditions existed at the airport at the time of the accident, and no flight plan was filed for the local flight that departed HFD about an hour earlier.
FBI is looking into the possibility that the aircraft was deliberately taken down by one of the two people on board, according to the authorities. A senior law enforcement official familiar with the investigation told the crash appears to have been a case of suicide, not terrorism. The official said the student pilot, identified as Feras M. Freitekh, was arguing with his instructor. The flight instructor told investigators that Freitekh, a Jordanian national, was at the controls at the time of the crash.
The NTSB did not determine the probable cause of this event and does not plan to issue a report or open a public docket. The investigation of this event is being conducted under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.