New Delhi: The Directorate General of
Civil Aviation has initiated a probe into the emergency
landing of a private helicopter carrying JD(U) President
Sharad Yadav in a field near Patna yesterday.
The chopper made a precautionary landing near
Jakkanpur, three nautical miles from Patna, after the pilot
identified a technical problem, official sources said.
No one was injured in the incident, which occured at a
time when the DGCA is carrying out a mid-term review of the
status of implementation of various measures which state
governments should take for safe helicopter operations.
Besides Yadav, others on board were the two pilots,
Bihar minister Prem Kumar, Secretary to Chief Minister S
Siddharth and Road Department Secretary Pratyay Amrit. They
were on their way to Chausa in Madhepura to attend an official
function.
Barely five minutes after taking off, the pilot
reported the technical problem to the Patna Air Traffic
Control and landed the helicopter.
The helicopter belonged to a private company Aryan
Aviation which was operating for the Bihar Government.
This is the second incident involving a helicopter in
two days, the latest being the accident in Arunachal Pradesh
in which a crew member of a Pawan Hans chopper fell to his
death as the door flung open mid-air early today.
Under the DGCA`s annual surveillance programme, all
helicopter operations are being subjected to detailed safety
audit. The aviation regulator had issued detailed guidelines
to all state governments and private operators after the
September 2009 chopper crash that claimed the lives of Andhra
Pradesh Chief Minister YSR Reddy and four others.
The DGCA had issued the latest rules or Civil Aviation
Requirement on June 2 asking all state governments to
implement the various safety requirements within four months.
PTI
