Teen’s Plane Crashes: Haris Suleman, Barbar Suleman Teen Pilot Case
A teen’s plane crashes in the South Pacific ocean near American Samoa after a failed attempt to travel around the world with his father, the Daily Mail is reporting today. Federal aviation authorities say 17-year-old Haris Suleman perished after his single engine plane went down. Authorities say the teen’s plane crashed two minutes and less than a mile after taking off. Teen pilot Haris Suleman’s body was found at the take off site in Pago Pago. His father’s body and the plane wreckage have not been found.
According to Haris Suleman’s sister, Hiba, aviation officials saw the lights of the plane go down in the ocean at around 6:30 pm. Haris Suleman and his father, Babar Suleman, had hoped to be travel around the world in a month, with the teen boy breaking a record for being the first teen to fly around the world successfully. The father and son pair had almost broken the record. They began their journey from the airport in Indiana, later flying to Canada, Iceland, and Egypt.
Friends and family members don’t feel the trip was in vain. Traveling the world is something that Haris and his father always wanted to do. Babar Suleman was a good pilot with more than 10 years experience in flying. His son, Haris Suleman, had been accompanying his father on plane trips since he was eight years old, according to ABC News.
The teen, who was also enjoyed hip hop dancing, had received his private pilot’s license in the United States. He chronicled his journey around the world with his father through social media posts, such as Facebook. One of the last photos that the teen pilot posted was a picture of himself with a camel in Egypt.
As the Inquisitr reported earlier, the Indiana teen had hoped to raise $1 million dollars to aid Pakistani children. In one of his last interviews, he stated that it was a very important for him to do everything possible to aid children in Pakistan to earn an education, and that without an education it would have been impossible for him to earn his pilot’s license at such a tender age.
This story comes just after news that 80 children lost their lives in the July 17 Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 plane crash, including an 11-year-old boy who had an eerie premonition that his plane would go down. Miguel Panduwinata’s last words to his mother were: “Mama, I’m going to miss you. What will happen if the airplane crashes?”
Over the years, stories of other teen plane crashes have made headlines. In 1997, 17-year-old teen pilot Sheba Van Pelt died after her plane crashed into another plane over Lake Michigan. In 2002, 15-year-old Charles J. Bishop, a student pilot, crashed his plane shortly after take off in Tampa, Florida, after ignoring the Coast Guard’s direct orders to land the plane. That teen had taken the plane without permission.
