Plane was flying in unusual pattern, says villager

KAPAR: Jinaidi Nasiran was changing the tyre of his car in his parking lot when he looked up to see an aircraft flying unusually.

Seconds later, the plane nose-dived and crashed in an oil palm plantation in Kampung Tok Muda, Kapar, Selangor.

Jinaidi said yesterday that he was facing the plantation when light aircraft model BK 160 Gabriel spiralled out of control and crashed at 1.30pm.

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“Something was off with the way the aircraft was flying,” said the 55-year-old.

“Suddenly it nose-dived into the ground... I rushed to the crash site and saw that the plane was already in pieces and slightly buried in the ground.

“I tried to look for the victims, but I could not see anyone,” he told Bernama at the scene.

A fruit seller, Sufian Hadi Abas, 45, said he heard a very loud explosion in the air before the crash.

“When I looked up, I saw fragments of the plane flying everywhere before it crashed into the ground,” he said.

A video has also gone viral showing parts of the plane flying in the air before falling to the ground, leading to the theory that it blew up in mid-air before the crash.

Another villager, Siti Zubaidah Salin, 60, who lives 150m from the crash site, said she thought it was an earthquake when she heard a loud explosion and felt a tremor.

“I was just relaxing at home when suddenly it felt like an earthquake had hit.

“I ran outside but there was nothing. Only later, I heard people talking about a plane crash,” she said.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia has confirmed that two people, including the pilot, were onboard the light aircraft that crashed in Kapar today.