Pilot involved in Ontario plane crash reported for improper registration: instructor

A British Columbia flight instructor alleges the pilot of a plane that crashed in northern Ontario with two wanted men on board had been advertising flight tours on a plane that wasn’t registered for commercial use.

Azam Azami, a flight instructor based in Chilliwack, B.C., says he flagged an online ad posted by Abhi Handa in a report to Transport Canada in December, more than four months before the same plane in the ad went down.

Azami says he noticed the image of a plane posted on Facebook Marketplace was not typically used for commercial purposes and when he searched it in a public database, he found it was only privately licensed.

Handa has been identified by Ontario Provincial Police as the man flying a small aircraft that crashed near Sioux Lookout, Ont. last month, killing all four aboard.

Police have identified the other passengers as Gene Lahrkamp, who was wanted in Thailand for murder, Duncan Bailey and Hankun Hong.

Bailey has the same full name and age as a man who breached his bail conditions in B.C., where he had been charged in a separate murder plot.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2022.

The Canadian Press