Tom Cruise flew same path across Colombian Andes before crash

CEBU, Philippines – Actor Tom Cruise flew in a helicopter across the Colombian Andes just 10 minutes before a small plane on the same dangerous flight path crashed into a jungled mountain, killing two crew members from his upcoming movie, civil aviation authorities said.

An official with the aviation agency, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss the matter, said the cause of the crash Friday that killed two people and seriously injured a third is still under investigation.

Those killed were veteran Hollywood pilot Alan Purwin and Venezuelan Carlos Berl, while another American, Jimmy Lee Garland, survived. All were experienced pilots although it’s not clear which of the three were in command of the plane at the time of the crash, the official said.

They crashed while returning to the city of Medellin on the twin-engine Piper-Aerostar 600 after a day of filming with Cruise for the film “Mena,” which stars the actor as American pilot Barry Seal, a drug runner recruited in the 1980s by the CIA to try to capture the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.

Cruise, a pilot, arrived in Medellin last month flying the same 1960s-era plane, which was similar to the one Seal would have flown for Escobar’s cartel, the official said. Photos of the actor sitting in the cockpit of the US-registered plane, and standing with Purwin outside the aircraft, have circulated for days in social media.

On Friday, Cruise left in one of two helicopters transporting crew from the colonial town of Santa Fe de Antioquia at around 5 p.m. local time. When they arrived at Medellin’s Olaya Herrera airport with nightfall approaching, and the plane didn’t show up, they alerted air traffic controllers, the official said.

A plane overhead located the downed aircraft just below a high ridge thanks to a distress signal, allowing rescuers to arrive to the crash site quickly and rush Garland to a hospital in Medellin, where he was in critical but stable condition.

This is the second time an aviator has died while working on a film with Cruise. Famed stunt pilot Art Scholl went down in waters near San Diego while performing a nose dive during the 1985 making of “Top Gun.”

Although there were no reports of bad weather in Santa Fe de Antioquia when the plane took off, the official described the normally 10-minute flight as a “bungee jump” or “roller coaster” requiring a skilled pilot to quickly take the plane from near sea level to a height of 3,000 meters, or 9,800 feet, to clear the Andes before descending sharply for the approach into the steep valley surrounding Medellin.

The official said the three pilots had flown the route at least a half-dozen times in recent days but were flying without the assistance of instruments and could have been disoriented by heavy clouds that regularly form near the crest of the Andes. When filming in other parts of the country, such as the Amazon, the crew of “Mena” had heeded authorities recommendation they have a Colombian pilot on board, the official said.

Cruise was able to land there on August 20 because his flight originated in Barranquilla, along the country’s Caribbean coast, and he was accompanied by a Colombian co-pilot, the official said.

A representative at the Cherokee County Airport, who declined to be identified out of respect for her boss’ privacy, said that the producers of “Mena” shot several flight scenes at the facility and were so impressed with Garland’s professionalism as a flying double for Cruise that they brought him to Colombia to continue filming there.

Purwin was founder and president of Los Angeles-based Helinet Technologies. On the company’s website, he’s described as “one of the top film pilots of his generation” with a list of credits from television and major Hollywood movies such as “Transformers,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Pirates of the Caribbean.” (AP)