Mumbai: A day after a helicopter ferrying chief minister Devendra Fadnavis crashed in Latur, two teams from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) reached the site of the incident to investigate the accident. The government-owned Sikorsky (VT-CMM) helicopter was damaged beyond repair in the accident and the government will
replace it.

“A DGCA team is in Nilanga where the accident took place yesterday afternoon. The aircraft accident investigation board team is also in Nilanga. They will carry out a physical inspection of the aircraft and the area and collect the flight data recorder. The data will be decoded in their labs. Once this is done, the actual inquiry will begin,” a government official said. The inquiry will take a couple of months after which the DGCA will ascertain the cause of the accident.  

Mr Fadnavis and other officials who were travelling with him in the helicopter escaped with their lives. The pilot, who had detected a variable wind pattern after taking off from Latur, decided to land back on the temporary helipad. However, while landing, the rotor blades of the helicopter got entangled in electric cables near the helipad.

After the accident, the government lost its third flying machine, as one helicopter and aircraft have been grounded for four years. The state government has two aircraft and two helicopters in its fleet: a Beechcraft Super King Air 350, which is in working condition; a Citation Excel plane, which is grounded; a Dauphin helicopter, which is grounded; and the Sirkosky helicopter, which met with the accident. Now, the government will have to depend on private companies in order to hire the aircraft, the official said.

State aviation department sources said the government would claim the insurance of the Sirkosky. “A helicopter can be bought with the help of insurance. But no decision has been taken on this yet,” a sources said.