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Pune, Oct 2 (PTI) Two ex-IAF pilots and a former Navy engineer were killed after a helicopter belonging to a private aviation company crashed and caught fire near Pune city on Wednesday morning, police said.<\/p>\n
The chopper, belonging to Delhi-based Heritage Aviation, had been hired by the Nationalist Congress Party, said its Maharashtra unit chief and MP Sunil Tatkare. He had flown in the helicopter only a day before, and was supposed to travel by it again on Wednesday, he told PTI.<\/p>\n
The chopper took off from Oxford County Golf Course helipad near Pune and was heading to Juhu in Mumbai when it crashed at 7.40 am, police said.<\/p>\n
The crash took place near a hilly terrain in Bavdhan area, close to the golf course and some 25 km from Pune city.<\/p>\n
The deceased were identified as pilot Paramjeet Singh (62), co-pilot G K Pillai (57), both retired from the Indian Air Force; and aircraft maintenance engineer Pritam Kumar Bhardwaj (53) who had retired from the Indian Navy, police officials said.<\/p>\n
An official from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) confirmed that the incident took place at 7.40 am. It was an Agusta 109 helicopter belonging to Heritage Aviation, he added.<\/p>\n
After the crash, the chopper caught fire, a local police official said, adding that fire tenders and water tankers were rushed to the spot.<\/p>\n
The helicopter had taken off from the helipad of Oxford County Golf Course around 7.30 am, said Pimpri Chinchwad Joint Commissioner of Police Shashikant Mahavarkar.<\/p>\n
Primary information suggested fog led to the accident but a detailed investigation will ascertain the exact cause, he added.<\/p>\n
Speaking to PTI over phone, NCP MP Tatkare said the incident was unfortunate.<\/p>\n
“I am deeply saddened by the incident. The helicopter was hired by our party, and on Tuesday, I had flown in it to Parli in Beed district. Today, I was supposed to fly from Mumbai to Raigad (his constituency) in the same helicopter,” he said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a probe team has been sent to the spot to collect material evidence, said a senior official of the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), a division of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. “We will publish a preliminary report as soon as possible,” he added.<\/p>\n
On August 24, a private helicopter flying from Mumbai to Hyderabad had crashed in Paud area near Pune, but its occupants survived.<\/p>\n
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Pune, Oct 2 (PTI) Two ex-IAF pilots and a former Navy engineer were killed after a helicopter belonging to a private aviation company crashed and caught fire near Pune city on Wednesday morning, police said. The chopper, belonging to Delhi-based Heritage Aviation, had been hired by the Nationalist Congress Party, said its Maharashtra unit chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-249714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-national"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}