Planes owned by a firm involved in a crash which killed a teenager and his 80-year-old flying instructor had been the subject of at least five previous investigations by watchdogs, the Mail on Sunday can disclose.

Leading Edge Flight Training owns eight light aircraft including the Piper Tomahawk which crashed on October 16, killing Ian Haggis and 16-year-old Ryan Sprott, of Johnstone, Renfrewshire.

Research by the MoS found that planes owned by the flight school have been involved in at least five serious incidents since 2019 which have been probed by the Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB).

We can also reveal that the plane involved in the crash near Drymen, Stirlingshire, had come out of maintenance shortly before, having been put into the hangar for work at the end of September.

It had been on the ground from September 28 until the day of the accident, according to tracking firm FlightRadar24, with sources at Cumbernauld airport confirming the plane had been having work done on it prior to October 16.

According to the AAIB, at least five planes owned by Leading Edge have been the subject of investigations in the last seven years.

In July 2019, a Piper Tomahawk touched down before reaching the runway at Cumbernauld airport and overturned. The pilot and passenger were both uninjured.

A month later a four-seater Reims Cessna veered off the runway due to the ‘inadvertent application of braking’.

In March 2022, another Tomahawk’s engine burst into flames after failing to start for a student.

The instructor had injected more fuel into the engine, known as priming, and tried to start it when flames began coming from the aircraft. Investigators said that ‘over priming’ the engine had likely caused the fire.

In April 2022, a pilot took two passengers on an introductory private flight with the towbar still attached to the plane.

Air traffic control had to communicate the error to the pilot, who claimed they had been ‘distracted’ by a question from one of the passengers before take-off.

Towbars can cause propellers to shatter, damage the steering system or lead pilots to lose control if they are left on.

In September 2023, the same plane caused a British Airways jet to abort landing after it was manoeuvred the wrong way up the runway at Glasgow airport.

The BA flight had to perform a ‘go-around’ procedure before landing safely a short time later.

Four sources working in the aviation industry told the MoS they had concerns about Leading Edge’s record.

One former employee, who now works as a commercial airline pilot, said he left the company four years ago after an aircraft began ‘shaking violently’ during a flight.

He said: ‘The industry is very small, close-knit and everyone knows one another so it’s hard to speak out publicly. I have kept quiet about why I left but I had serious concerns about the state of the aircraft at Leading Edge.

‘I was flying in one of the planes one day and it started shaking violently. The engine cowling had a bolt missing, and there was tape placed over it to keep the aircraft flying. Another plane had an engine fire. It completely put me off. I moved elsewhere.

‘Obviously there will be a thorough investigation into what happened with the Tomahawk, and I hope it gets the answers both of these families need. It’s a tragedy, and not something any of us who love flying want to see. But there has to be a wider examination of what is going on at the flight school.’

Police and the AAIB are still investigating the crash, and the Crown Office said it was committed to ensuring the circumstances and facts of the tragedy were ‘aired in an appropriate legal forum’.

A spokesman said: ‘The Procurator Fiscal has received reports in connection with the deaths of an 80-year-old man and a child after a fatal light aircraft crash near Drymen on October 16, 2026.

‘An investigation by Police Scotland, supported by the Civil Aviation Authority, is ongoing and once complete will be fully considered by the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.’

The Civil Aviation Authority said it would ‘not be appropriate to comment’ given the ongoing investigation. Leading Edge was contacted for comment.