NEW DELHI, Feb 26: A woman trainee pilot of a Hyderabad-based private aviation training institute was killed when the aircraft crashed near Nalgonda, about 135 kilometres from Hyderabad on Saturday.
The victim, who was the only occupant of the two-seater training plane when it crashed, was identified as 29-year old Maheema Gajaraj, a resident of Chennai, training with Flytech Aviation Academy.
According to the Nalgonda District Superintendent of Police Rema Rajeshwari, the trainee pilot took off her Cessna 152 aeroplane at around 10.30 a.m. from the Academy’s operations institute located on the right bank side of Nagarjunasagar reservoir, bordering Nalgonda, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. The plane crashed some 20 minutes later.
The people of Thungathurthy village where the debris of the aircraft fell, said they felt that the aircraft had lost control in the air and spun to the ground possibly after hitting the high electrical lines of the 133kv transmission tower nearby. They said they heard a sound of explosion before the debris fell on the ground.
Ms. Rajeshwari said two simultaneous investigations, one by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the other led by the divisional Miryalaguda police, would be conducted to uncover the truth behind the crash. Academy authorities were not immediately available for comment.
(Manas Dasgupta)
