Mumbai chopper crash report within a week -Governance Now

Mumbai chopper crash report within a week

The DGCA does not have enough manpower to do safety audits, claims air safety expert

Geetanjali Minhas | December 12, 2016 | Mumbai

#DGCA #Mumbai #Helicopter crash #air safety

Four-seater Robinson R-44 helicopter

A two member team from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is conducting an investigation into a helicopter crash in Mumbai. A senior official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) told Governance Now that the results will be known after a week, when the investigations are over.

To a query if adequate air safety standards exist, the official said all safety standards exist, but these have to be followed.

The four-seater Robinson R-44 helicopter crashed into the hilly terrain of Aarey Colony in suburban Goregaon on Sunday morning, killing its pilot Praful Kumar Mishra (57) and injuring three others - Ritesh Modi (36) and his wife Vrinda Modi (33) and technician Sanjeev Shankar (24).

The chopper took off from Juhu Airport at 11.52 am with the Modi couple, residents of Borivali, who had booked a 15-minute ride.

According to officials of the Juhu Air Traffic Control (ATC), Mishra got in touch with them at 11.56 am and told them that he would have to crash-land the aircraft due to problems in its clutch. Juhu ATC officials said the chopper crashed exactly a minute later — at 11.57 am.

Speaking on safety measures, retired airline pilot and air safety expert, Mohan Ranganathan said, “There is a lot of cutting corners and DGCA just turns a blind eye. The directorate does not have proper manpower to do surveillance safety audits. People are just signing on dotted lines without properly completing the audits. This is a big problem.”

However, Rohit Kapoor, member, Business Aircraft Operators Association and MD Arrow Aircraft Sails and Charters Pvt Ltd, said that though safety measures are always in place, a technical snag can happen to any aircraft. “Here it seems the pilot had made a radio transmission contact. The investigations will reveal if it was a technical failure or something else.”

Aman Aviation had purchased the helicopter from Pawn Hans four years ago for commercial use. Apart from joyrides, Aman Aviation provides services for aerial advertisement, film shooting and geological surveys. The company charges between Rs 3,200 for a 10-minute ride and Rs 17,000 for 60 minutes per person for the joyrides.

Comments

Other News

Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure released

The final ‘Report of India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure’ by ‘India’s G20 Task Force on Digital Public Infrastructure for Economic Transformation, Financial Inclusion and Development’ was released in New Delhi on Monday. The Task Force was led by the

How the Great War of Mahabharata was actually a world war

Mahabharata: A World War By Gaurang Damani Sanganak Prakashan, 317 pages, Rs 300 Gaurang Damani, a Mumbai-based el

Budget expectations, from job creation to tax reforms…

With the return of the NDA to power in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, all eyes are now on finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s full budget for the FY 2024-25. The interim budget presented in February was a typical vote-on-accounts, allowing the outgoing government to manage expenses in

How to transform rural landscapes, design 5G intelligent villages

Futuristic technologies such as 5G are already here. While urban users are reaping their benefits, these technologies also have a potential to transform rural areas. How to unleash that potential is the question. That was the focus of a workshop – “Transforming Rural Landscape:

PM Modi visits Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh in Moscow

Prime minister Narendra Modi, accompanied by president Vladimir Putin, visited the All Russian Exhibition Centre, VDNKh, in Moscow Tuesday. The two leaders toured the Rosatom Pavilion at VDNKh. The Rosatom pavilion, inaugurated in November 2023, is one of the largest exhibitions on the histo

Let us pledge to do what we can for environment: President

President Droupadi Murmu on Monday morning spent some time at the sea beach of the holy city of Puri, a day after participating in the annual Rath Yatra. Later she penned her thoughts about the experience of being in close commune with nature. In a message posted on X, she said: