DGCA begins probe

Jindal group patriarch dies in chopper crash

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has instituted an enquiry into the Saharanpur helicopter crash, which claimed the lives of two Haryana ministers.

Civil aviation ministry officials said the government was likely to make the air-worthiness certification of helicopters more stringent.

"Analysis of earlier accidents associated with small aircraft operations from improvised airstrips revealed that laid down instructions were violated time and again and safety was jeopardised," said a civil aviation ministry official.

The probe will be headed by deputy director in DGCA P K Chattopadhyay, who has been appointed the inspector of the inquiry, official sources said.

This is the second major air crash reported in the country in less than one year. In April last year, during the election campaign a chartered Cessna aircraft crashed near Bangalore.

Besides, the former Lok Sabha speaker GMC Balayogi was killed in a helicopter crash in Andhra Pradesh in 2002. Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia was also killed in a small aircraft crash in 2001.

Political parties lease such aircraft for the use of their leaders during elections. It is interesting to note that in the light of the increased chartering of aircraft during elections, the civil aviation ministry recently came out with a set of guidelines for operating smaller aircraft.

Civil aviation minister Praful Patel said the helicopter was just three years old and had clocked over 100 hours of flying time.

"The pilot was trained in flying this chopper," he said. The pilot was checked and certified by helicopter maker Eurocpter in December 2004.

Patel said the helicopter was brought to India only in December and the mandatory 25-hour technical checks were carried out last time just four days ago. He, however, said the full enquiry would only reveal the actual cause of the accident.

Patel refused to give a time-frame by which the enquiry would be completed saying it was difficult to forecast as everything would depend on the condition of the wreckage of the chopper.

The helicopter, VTVYJ typer E 120, took off from Chandigarh at 11:32 am today and landed at Rajinder Park to pick up passengers enroute to Delhi.

The air traffic control had asked the copter to report when it was 15 meters out of Sarsawa, near Saharanpur in UP, after which the the copter lost contact.