A small plane crashed near Denver on May 31, 2014 killing its pilot and his passenger and one of the possible reasons identified by federal accident investigators was taking selfies in the cockpit.
According to a new report released by the National Transportation Safety Board, the distraction of the pilot Amritpal Singh, 29, while taking selfies could have caused the crash. Among the evidence taken from the scene is a GoPro camera containing videos from recent flights.
The report released by the NTSB confirmed "cell phone use during low-altitude maneuvering, including the flight immediately before the accident flight."
Since the investigators found nothing wrong with the Cessna 150 airplane itself, it was concluded that cell phone use during the accident was very likely to be the cause of the pilot's distraction, the spatial disorientation development and the consequent loss of control.
Also, the investigators found out that before spinning out of control and crashing, the plane was not going too fast.
The GoPro did not record the crash itself but based on the recordings, the pilot was proven to have been taking selfies with several passengers using their cell phones and the camera's flash function during the night flight.
Two months before the report was released, the Federal Aviation Administration questioned the safety of pilots taking photos mid-flight after photos from the cockpits of private and commercial flights started flooding Instagram.
The passenger on the plane was a musician in town for a concert at a local high school as the pilot was giving airplane rides to some of the people in town for the concert at the time, the pilot's family told ABC affiliate KMGH-TV.