The founder and chairman of Los Angeles-based Helinet Aviation died Friday afternoon in Colombia while on assignment for the upcoming Tom Cruise movie Mena. Alan Purwin and Colombian national Carlos Berl were killed when their Piper Aerostar 600 being used in the film crashed while flying in mountainous terrain Friday between Santa Fe de Antioquia and Medellin. A third pilot aboard, Jimmy Lee Garland of Waleska, Ga., is hospitalized in Medellin with multiple fractures and spinal and lung injuries, AIN learned Sunday night.
It is not clear who was flying the aircraft. Purwin, 53, founded the company that became Helinet in 1987 and was considered one of Hollywood’s top television and film helicopter and fixed-wing pilots. Mena details the life of pilot Barry Seal, a drug smuggler turned CIA operative who was assassinated in 1986.