Mark Wright has apologised for an “inappropriate” post shared shortly after more than 250 people died in the Air India plane crash.
On Thursday (12 June), the plane, which was flying to London Gatwick, crashed into a hostel building in Gujarat five minutes after taking off.
Images and videos from the city showed plumes of smoke pouring from the wreckage of the plane as firefighters tried to douse the charred remains of buildings impacted by the crash.
Soon after, The Only Way is Essex star Wright, 38, shared a post complaining about leg room on standard planes, using a photo of himself and his wife Michelle Keegan, with their baby daughter, in front of a private jet.
He captioned the post: “One day babe – for now, we’ll take row 26 with no extra leg room.”
After his followers issued complaints at the timing of the post, with one commenting: “Not really appropriate to put this up after today’s plane crash,” Wright immediately removed it.
He the revealed he had written and scheduled the post before the crash. He called it a “horrendous coincidence”.
“I apologise for a post I just put up on my page after today’s heartbreaking events,” he wrote on his Instagram Storie.
“I have posts from a holiday that are on the scheduled setting, which go out on future days I have set them for which was done last week. It’s a horrendous coincidence that today’s post was on such a devastating day.”
He continued: “Once I logged in to my Instagram and realised the post had gone out, I immediately deleted. My heart goes out to everyone who has been affected from today.”
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Wright apologised “for this mistake and any offence caused”.
The Independent has contacted Wright for further comment.
A British national was the sole survivor of the Air India flight. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, who had been sitting in seat 11A, was identified by local police shortly after the crash.
Indian civil aviation minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu said on Thursday night that a formal investigation in keeping with international protocols had been initiated.
A UK team had been dispatched to join the investigation as well, prime minister Keir Starmer said.
The flight was under the command of Captain Sumeet Sabharwal, a line training captain with 8,200 hours of flying experience, and First Officer Clive Kundar, who had logged 1,100 hours.
There were 10 other crew members on board, civil aviation authorities said.
