A $5 million lawsuit has been filed against a Borough Park-based firm that organizes all-inclusive, five-star tours to Eastern Europe about a Ukrainian plane disaster in 2021 that claimed the lives of three yeshiva students and the pilot.
According to papers from the Brooklyn Supreme Court, LaLechet Tours and its owner, David Landau, were sued on May 30 by Yehuda “Jay” Brull, acting as the administrator of his son Eliazer “Lazer” Brull’s estate.
The tiny tour plane that Brull and his fellow yeshiva students Amrom Fromowitz and Hershy Weiss were on as part of a LaLechet Tour of Eastern Europe crashed into a home in the Ivano-Frankvisk area of Ukraine, which is approximately 365 miles southwest of Kiev, killing them.
The three were among several Hasidic yeshiva students from the Jerusalem-based Mirrer Yeshiva traveling across Hungary and Ukraine throughout the summer.
Ihor Tabaniuk, the pilot of the Aerospool Advantic WT10, who the lawsuit claims can “be built by amateurs from a KIT” and is based on the business’s WT9, which has an “extensive accident history,” was also killed in the crash.
The lawsuit claims that the 20-year-old Brull and his fellow passengers were subjected to several unsafe circumstances as they flew through Ukrainian airspace ten days after Tisha B’Av, including being transported by a pilot who was both unqualified and had disregarded a pre-flight checklist that guaranteed that all passengers were in good health.
A post-accident examination established that the pilot turned the aircraft in a barrel roll in contravention of the pilot manual, which led to his losing control of the vehicle and the fatal crash.
The property was unoccupied at the time of the incident, and it took ten rescuers and three fire vehicles around 20 minutes to put out the fires.
The lawsuit accuses LaLechet and Landau of intentional and reckless disregard for Lazer Brull’s safety, gross negligence, and failure to take the necessary precautions to ensure the aircraft was operated safely.
The website for LaLechet claims that visitors will have their “dream trip,” stating that every aspect of their journeys is prepared “down to the last perfect, flawless detail.”
Marc Moller, an attorney for the Brull family, told the New York Post that the tour operator that put together this package “needs to answer some serious questions.”
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