Robert Murgatroyd (pictured above) has been jailed for three-and-a-half years after being convicted of endangering the safety of a person and an aircraft, flying without the relevant licence, failing to comply with insurance regulations plus three other charges under the Air Navigation Order 2016
A cavalier pilot with a 22-year history of flouting aviation laws was jailed today for overloading his plane with customers in pursuit of an £800 profit, causing it to 'fall out of the sky'.
Robert Murgatroyd received a three-and-a-half year sentence after being found culpable for the 2017 crash, in which three people were injured.
The 52-year-old had previously been convicted for flying an unsafe plane which crashed killing two men, as well as for illegally operating public transport flights.
He had also run a commercial airline which went bust owing £1 million and was criticised over another double fatal light aircraft crash.
But despite his background, Murgatroyd was free to fly three birdwatchers on an 800-mile round trip to the Scottish island of Barra on the Outer Hebrides on September 17 2017.
The 1972 Piper Cherokee four-seater aircraft was overloaded by 29 stone and 20% above its maximum capacity due to the size of the men plus luggage and excess fuel.
It subsequently 'fell out of the sky' as it tried in vain to clear a row of 300-foot pylons shortly after take-off in bad weather from City Airport formerly known as Barton Aerodrome near Eccles, Greater Manchester.
The aircraft twice flew over the neighbouring M62 motorway as it made a mid-air U turn in an attempt to fly back to the airport. But it clipped a tree and crash landed in a potato field 160 yards from the motorway causing its left wing and undercarriage to be ripped away and its fuel tanks to rupture.
The Piper Cherokee (pictured above) after the crash which injured three passengers in September 2017
Robert Murgatroyd (pictured above) had tried to claim he was a 'hero' and should be featured in a Hollywood movie
One passenger suffered a serious cut to his forehead whilst another was left with fractured ribs. In the moments before the impact, Murgatroyd was overheard saying: 'There's not enough power - we're not going to make it.'
Police arrested and quizzed Murgatroyd about the 9.30am accident near the Manchester Ship Canal but he claimed he was a 'hero' for avoiding any deaths.
He also joked Warner Brothers film studios had contacted him about a 'remake' of the Tom Hanks movie Sully about the 2009 landing of a US Airways passenger jet on the Hudson River in New York - and rename it 'Miracle on the Ship Canal.'
Murgatroyd, from Garstang, Lancs who usually operated from an air strip at Blackpool told police: 'Without blowing my own trumpet, if it hadn't been for me on that fight that day you'd have been collecting four dead people out of that field.'
The light aircraft (pictured above) was 50 per cent above its maximum capacity of 55 stone
The wreckage of the plane (pictured above) which was over capacity by 29 stone, and crashed shortly after take-off dangerously close to the M62 motorway
But inquiries revealed Murgatroyd had been prosecuted in 2014 after an unairworthy Piper PA plane he owned crashed in the Swiss Alps killing the pilot and a passenger.
The plane's equivalent of a car's MoT certificate had expired 44 days before the crash on the Jura mountainside in October 2011, and during the days before the tragedy it had been on 28 separate flights.
A Swiss inquiry blamed a pilot error for the crash but condemned the lack of an airworthiness certificate and Murgatroyd was later fined £333.
The businessman, who once owned 20 aircraft and two helicopters was also fined £1,500 in 1997 for false representation.
Murgatroyd had a history of severe aviation misconduct spanning two decades and had run a commercial airline which went bust owing £1.15 million
His business Comed Aviation collapsed in 2001 owing £1.15 million, but it is thought he set up another aviation firm.
In 2008 he was once again accused of wrongdoing after another plane he owned crashed off the coast of Blackpool killing the inexperienced pilot and 81-year old co-pilot.
At an inquest it was claimed Murgatroyd had said the elderly co-pilot was a qualified instructor when in fact the pensioner did not hold an instructors licence due to him being 'medically unfit'.
Now, Murgatroyd has been convicted at Manchester Crown Court of endangering the safety of a person and an aircraft, flying without the relevant licence, failing to comply
