Two Killed Trainer Aircraft Crashes At Sanathnagar

A single-engine aircraft - Cessna-152 (VTEMR)- crashlanded in the thickly populated Subashnagar area in Sanatnagar here at around 11.09 am resulting in the death of assistant flight instructor Captain Neeraj Jain (24) and trainee pilot P Srinivas of the AP Aviation Academy on Monday morning.

Srinivas was charred to death in the aircraft, while Jain died on the way to hospital. Jain was from Gurgaon in Delhi, while Srinivas was a resident of Sainikpuri in the city.

Begumpet airport director R K Singla told ‘TOI’ that according to Air Traffic Control (ATC) records the two-seater aircraft took off at 11.07 am from the Begumpet airport and lost contact with the ATC at 11.09 am. "We are yet to ascertain the reason for the accident," he said.



A team of officials from the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) would go into the cause of the accident, police said.

Eyewitnesses said the aircraft hurtled down and hit an electric pole before hitting the ground. The tail of the aircraft, however, got stuck in a nearby building.

According to officials, the aircraft might have developed a technical snag and hit a high-tension powerline in the process of attempting an emergency landing at an idgah in Subhashnagar. However, the aircraft missed the open land, hit an electric pole and a building and crashed in an alley, right behind a Ganesh pandal. The panic-stricken residents ran for safety soon after the crash. A wing of the aircraft fell on the rooftop of a building. One of the local youths sustained minor injuries while trying to douse the aircraft fire by pouring buckets of water. P Vinod Kumar, who was among the first to reach the accident spot, said: "I was sleeping in the pandal and heard a loud blast-like sound. I rushed out and saw the crashed aircraft. While one person (Srinivas) was completely burnt, another (Neeraj Jain), with folded hands, pleaded for help."

"I tried to cut fuel supply of the aircraft as there were chances of an explosion. At the same time, I tried to rescue the man. However, within few seconds, he came out of the wreckage, but he was badly burnt," he added.

In fact, a major mishap was averted as there was no power supply in the area at the time of the accident. "There was no power in the locality from 9.30 am. Usually, there is no power interruption, but today CPDCL resorted to load shedding," A Surekha, a housewife, said. She was reading a newspaper on the staircase when the aircraft hit her building and collapsed. As a result, she suffered minor injuries on her head.

There were no civilian casualties on the ground as the aircraft fell between two residential blocks. Incidentally, hundreds of students were attending school just 40 feet away from the accident spot.

The AP Aviation Academy uses three Cessna-152s and a Cessna-172 for training. The academy has been using the Cessna-152 for the past 20 years. "There is a thorough check on every aircraft before handing it over to the trainee pilots," a senior official of the academy said. The official said based on the ‘emergency located transmission’ (ELT), the reason for the accident could be known. "The ELT will help during the investigation," he replied to a query.

The post-mortem on the bodies of the trainee pilot and instructor was conducted at the Gandhi Hospital.

courtesy: Timesofindia