HYDERABAD: Kanthi Mallesh, a cotton farmer from Sultanpur village, was spraying urea on his crop on Sunday morning when the weather suddenly turned bad.
Dark clouds covered the sky, accompanied by lightning and thunder. Then, there was a deafening noise. “I thought it was a thunderbolt,” the farmer recounted. “But something was above, at about twice the height of an electric pole.” Before he knew it, an aircraft came crashing down.
“It twisted and turned several times in the air, and then came near the ground. It immediately took a sharp turn, and crashed in a field about 300 ft from mine,” he added. It was around noon then, and it was pouring heavily.
Joined by the other farmers, Mallesh rushed to the crash site to search for people in the mangled remains of the plane. But amid the debris, all they could find were scattered body parts. The plane itself had broken into pieces, leaving bits of metal strewn all over. It had crashed in fields belonging to Bantu Balakrishna and Bantu Balamani, spread over 10 acres. It first hit the ground in Balakrishna’s field, and then dragged itself, coming to a halt in Balamani’s field. The cotton crop in the fields was damaged.
The district administration and officials of the aviation firm visited the spot and promised to help the farmers. Based on a complaint by Mallesh, the Bantwaram police registered a case under Section 174 of CrPC.