Arunachal Pradesh CM Dorjee Khandu dead in chopper crash

Posted on: 04 May 2011, 11:41 PM

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Arunachal Pradesh CM Dorjee Khandu dead

 

Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, who was missing since Saturday on a flight from Tawang, is dead along with four others after their helicopter crashed in bad weather in the hills and their bodies along with the debris were spotted on Wednesday.

The five, including two pilots, who took off in a single-engined EuroCopter B8 of Pawan Hans, perished in the crash and the bodies and wreckage of the chopper were spotted in a place between Kyela and Lobothang in the mountainous region of the state this morning.

"The Chief Minister and four others are dead," Union Minister for Development of Northeastern Region B K Handique told a press conference here this evening.

The other occupants of the helicopter were pilots Capt J S Babbar, Capt T S Mamik, Khandu's security officer Yeshi Choddak and Yeshi Lhamu, sister of Tawant MLA Tsewang Dhondup.

This is the second death of a Chief Minister in two years after the death of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy in a helicopter crash in the Nallamalla ranges in the state in September 2009.

There was also another crash involving a Pawan Hans helicopter a fortnight ago in Arunachal mountains in which 17 people were killed.

Twice Chief Minister of this north eastern state, 56-year-old Khandu, who belongs to Monpa tribe, leaves four wives, four sons and two daughters.

Khandu had worked in the military intelligence and participated in the Bangladesh liberation war of 1971. He had received a gold medal for meritorious service during the war.

Handique said operations for recovery of the bodies were on and would continue through the night and, if necessary, on Thursday morning.

Bodies will be picked up one after the other and transported. A decision will be taken whether to bring them to Tawang or to Itanagar, he said.

Handique had earlier in the day said a relative of 56-year-old Khandu, who has been Chief Minister twice, and a panchayat leader from his constituency identified his body.

The panchayat leader Thupten from Kyela village of Khandu's Mukto constituency, first informed an official Rinchin of his sighting the body which was passed on Tawang Deputy Commissioner Hamli Padu, who alerted the army base at Kyela, Handique reporters here.

Handique said a state mourning will be declared once the body of the Chief Minister is recovered. Handique said the Chief Minister's body would lie in state in his home here for people to pay their last respects and full honours would be accorded to it.

To a question about a successor to Khandu, he said he would be named at an appropriate time.

Asked whether Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi would be making a visit here, he said they would get in touch with them once all formalities are finalised.

The Minister said all the bodies were lying in a deep gorge in Kyela near Luguthang at an altitude of 4,500 metres about 6 hours by foot from Luguthang Gompa in Tawang district.

"The process may continue till morning and the bodies one by one will be flown from Luguthang in an IAF Chetak helicopter to Tawang from where it will be flown to Itanagar most likely tomorrow with the consent of family members in a big chopper," he said.

Handique said honouring the wishes of people, Khandu's body would be brought here and kept in his bungalow for the people to pay their last respects. Condoling Khandu's death, West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan said he was "not only an eminent politician, but also a social worker par excellence".

PC gave hints of bad tidings

Earlier in the morning in Delhi, Home Minister P Chidambaram gave hints of bad tidings when he said information is "not encouraging and not good news". He spoke about helicopters locating the site of the crash and sighting of bodies.

Later in the evening, in his second update to the reporters he said, "From whatever I can piece together the information from the information given by the villagers and assuming it to be true, I am afraid the news is grim and sad."

Giving details, he said some villagers had reportedly reached the site of the crash of a helicopter and communicated to the control room in Itanagar that they had identified two bodies while three were charred beyond recognition.

"These are interrupted communications by villagers who have reached the site. But no official of the government, army or police has been able to reach there," he said.

"It may take several hours for any of these officials to reach the spot because it is about five kilometres from Kyela," Chidambaram said.

He said a Cheetah helicopter, which flew over the site, was also able to locate the debris of a crashed helicopter and some bodies lying there.

"We are trying to land another Cheetah from Lubuthang," the Home Minister said, adding a team of the government to reach the accident site which is about 5 kms from Kyela.

House panel on pilots’ duty 

Pilots flying helicopters are forced to undertake landing and take off in low visibility or in bad weather and pressurised not to oppose technical deficiencies, a Parliamentary Committee has said and suggested penal provisions in such cases breach of aviation rules.

In its report, the Parliamentary Standing Committee of Transport said the technical personnel or pilots should be provided adequate legal and administrative protection to decline to fly in the absence of mandatory technical, weather and other clearance.

"The Committee notes with concern the instances of forceful landing/take off of helicopters in low visibility, bad weather and even during nights, which are serious breaches of aviation security norms. It has been brought to the notice of the Committee that at times technical clearances are given to the helicopters with minor defects to take off," it said.

The findings of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, which covers Civil Aviation, came out on a day when Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu's death was announced. The chopper carrying Khandu had taken off from Tawang on Saturday in bad weather conditions.

Several instances of VIPs pressurising the pilots to fly even when the conditions are not favourable have come to light in the past.

"The technical personnel including pilots are put under pressure not to oppose these deficiencies due to commercial or other reasons. It happens mainly in the case of chartered helicopters and those under the state governments flying VIPs. Such violations of rules have led to fatal accidents losing several precious lives," the report states.

The Parliamentary panel has recommended that, "pilots be provided adequate legal protection to decline to fly in absence of mandatory technical or weather clearances... Some kind of penal provision may be considered against those putting such pressure on them without clearances."

‘Crew flying Khandu was highly experienced’

Amid concerns over safety aspect of choppers in the wake of Dorji Khandu's death in an air crash, Pawan Hans Helicopters on Wednesday said the crew flying the Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister was one of the best the company had.

It also claimed that its crew members were highly experienced and mature pilots and were drawn from Defence Services - Air Force, Army and Navy.

The Chief Minister, who died with four others including two pilots, was flying in a single-engine Euro Copter B8 of Pawan Hans that crashed on April 30 soon after take-off from Tawang.

Terming the incident as "unfortunate", Deputy General Manager (Engg) of Pawan Hans Sanjeev Razdan said in a press release Capt JS Babbar and Capt TS Mamik, flying the ill-fated chopper, were ex-Army pilots with flying experience of around 4000 hours and 3200 hours respectively.

Helicopter, plane crashes and politicians

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu's death in a helicopter crash adds another sad chapter to the story of politicians who have died in chopper and airplane accidents in the country over the past several decades.

The tragedy is a grim reminder of the deaths in aerial crashes involving Indian politicians--Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, Sanjay Gandhi, Madhavrao Scindia, G M C Balayogi, S Mohan Kumaramangalam, O P Jindal, Surendra Singh, Dera Natung and C Sangma.

The previous air accident which claimed the life of a politician was the crash of a helicopter in which Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy was onboard.

The chopper of the senior Congress leader, popularly known as YSR, crashed in a forest while flying in a Bell 430 to Chitoor district in Andhra Pradesh. His body was traced 27 hours after the helicopter went missing on September 3, 2009.

Perhaps one of the first Indian political leaders to die in a plane crash was freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose – on Aug 18, 1945 in present day Taiwan. But many insist to this
day that he survived.

Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was killed when a glider he was flying crashed soon after taking off from the Safdarjung airport in Delhi on June 23, 1980.

Madhavrao Scindia, a senior Congress leader and a former union cabinet minister, was killed in a Cessna aircraft crash on September 30, 2001 while travelling to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh to address a public rally.

Lok Sabha Speaker and Telugu Desam leader G M C Balayogi died in a chopper crash on March 3, 2002 in Andhra Pradesh. Balayogi was in a Bell 206 helicopter. An official probe ruled that the crash was caused when the pilot, unable to continue due to poor visibility, mistakenly landed on a pond thinking it was a land surface.

Mohan Kumaramangalam, from the Congress, died in an Indian Airlines plane crash in 1973 near New Delhi.

O P Jindal, Haryana's then power minister and a noted industrialist, and state agriculture minister Surendra Singh were killed when the chopper carrying them developed a technical snag and went down near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh on March 31, 2005.

Arunachal Pradesh Education Minister Natung was killed in a helicopter crash in May 2001. Sangma, the then Meghalaya community development minister, three legislators and six others were killed in a helicopter crash in September 2004.

Punjab Governor Surendra Nath and nine members of his family were killed when the government's Super-King aircraft crashed into high mountains in bad weather on July 9, 1994 in Himachal Pradesh. Nath was then acting Himachal Governor also