MUMBAI/KOCHI: A Pawan Hans helicopter with seven persons — five Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) officers and two pilots —crashed off the Mumbai coast minutes after it took off for the state-owned company's oil installation in the Arabian Sea. So far, five bodies have been recovered, ONGC said in a statement.
Search operation is on for other missing persons. The chopper, including three deputy general managers, went missing around 10.40 hours on Saturday. The three Keralites who died were Jose Antony, VK Bindulal and P N Sreenivasan. The relatives of Jose left for Mumbai from the Nedumbassery airport on Saturday evening. Jose, 54, a native of Minipady, Ramalloor, near Kothamangalam, was the fourth son of the late Paul Antony and the late Elizabeth Antony.
He is survived by wife Rani, daughters Renitha and Reshmitha. "A decision on bringing the body to Kothamangalam will be taken by the relatives," a relative of Jose told Express. Jose, who had completed his schooling at Nirmala High School, Muvattupuzha and later studied at the Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam, joined ONGC in 1988. He had worked in Assam and Andhra Pradesh before moving to Mumbai.
"Jose and his family have been staying in Mumbai for several years. They had visited the native place on December 27 from Bangalore, where they attended the marriage of a relative. His father P V Antony was a well-known teacher in Kothamangalam," the relative said.
V K Bindu Lal, who was a deputy general manager, hailed from Chalakudy. The fourth child of the late Valiyaparambil Kuttapan and the late Narayaniamma, who were teachers at Government High School, Chalakudy. He did his schooling at East School, Chalakudy, and later moved to Sanik School at Kazhakoottam where he completed the Plus two. He graduated from a Marine Engineering institute in Dhanbad. He shifted to Mumbai around 20 years before. He is survived by wife Dr Shiny, daughter Vibisha and son Susant, plut-two and third-standard student respectively. Babu had visited his native place in August 2015 to settle ancestral property's partition-related matter.
P N Sreenivasan, 59, another ONGC officer, was a member of Pookattuparambil family and his ancestral house is at M G Nagar, Punkunnam, Trissur.
The son of Narayanan Ezhuthachan and late Ambujakshi, his family is settled in Mumbai. He is survived by wife Jayashree, son Arjun Kiran, bank employee and daughter Ishwarya, an MBA student. Sreenivasan owns an apartment in Sobha City in Trissur.