NEW DELHI, Aug 24: A private helicopter carrying four persons, including the pilot, crashed in Pune reportedly due to strong winds and bad weather on Sunday.
All the four miraculously escaped major injuries. While the pilot sustained some injuries and was hospitalised, there was no major injury to three other flyers and are in stable condition.
The aircraft, an AW 139, took off from Juhu in Mumbai. It was flying to Hyderabad when it crashed in Pune’s Paud area. The captain, who was injured, was taken to hospital for treatment. The chopper was operated by Global Vectra Helicorp.
“A private helicopter crashed near Paud village in Pune district. The helicopter belongs to a private aviation company. It was going from Mumbai to Hyderabad. Among the 4 people who were in the Helicopter, the captain sustained injuries and was hospitalised. The rest of the three persons are in stable condition,” Pankaj Deshmukh, Superintendent of Police, Pune Rural Police said.
Bad weather was suspected to have caused the crash as the area is receiving heavy rains, said inspector Manoj Yadav of Paud police station. Locals rushed to the rescue of the occupants as it came down.
“When they took off from Mumbai, the weather was fine, but when the chopper reached Paud area, which has been receiving rains since last night, it encountered difficulties. The pilot tried to land but it hit a babul tree and then crashed to the ground,” said inspector Yadav.
As the fall was broken by the tree, the impact of the final crash appeared to have been mitigated, he said. There were no reports of the chopper experiencing any technical problems, the official said.
In May, a private helicopter that came to pick up Shiv Sena leader Sushma Andhare had crashed while trying to land. The pilot and his assistant had escaped safely.
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued orange alerts, warning of heavy rainfall, for Pune and Satara districts in western Maharashtra. A low pressure area over east central Arabian Sea off the Maharashtra coast will bring rain to most parts of Maharashtra in the next 48 hours, an IMD official has said.
(Manas Dasgupta)