The producers of upcoming Tom Cruise action movie American Made have been hit with a wrongful death suit by the family of a plane crash victim.
Last September, a twin engine Aerostar 600 plane took off near a jungle filming location, and crashed about ten minutes after departure en route to Medellin, Colombia.
The legal action claims that safety was compromised because flight operations were "rushed" to save money when the film's production fell behind schedule.
It was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday (local time) on behalf of the family of Carlos Berl, one of three people who died in the accident.
The lawsuit claims that the defendants "unexpectedly directed" Mr Berl to board the aircraft, but that he had repeatedly informed them he had insufficient flight experience to safely pilot it and still required flight instruction and familiarisation.
"The terrain over which the aircraft would fly in order to reach Medellin was unsuitably difficult for such an instructional flight, especially one conducted in a rushed and unscheduled manner in an aircraft with limited flight data and weather instrumentation," the lawsuit claims.
Mena Productions, Cross Creek Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Vendian Entertainment, Quadrant Pictures, helicopter pilot Frederic North, pilot Jimmy Lee Garland and his company S&S Aviation are named as defendants, along with Heliblack, the company of stunt pilot Alan Purwin, who died in the crash, and Kathryn Purwin, the executor of Purwin's estate.
Newshub.