LUCKNOW: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath’s helicopter made an emergency landing when a bird hit immediately after take off in Varanasi on Sunday morning. The incident took place as the helicopter left the Reserve Police Lines Ground in Varanasi for Sultanpur.
Varanasi district authorities said, the CM's chopper took off at 9 am for Sultanpur. After about four minutes of flight, the chopper was hit by a bird. As a result, one of the window panes of the chopper was damaged. The pilot, taking the due precautions against any possible technical snag due to bird hit, returned and landed the helicopter in the police lines ground.
Civil aviation officials said the chopper was at a height of 1550 ft and was flying at 190 km/hour over Pisaur village in Varanasi when it was hit by a bird.
Soon after the emergency landing, Yogi went back to the circuit house and from there proceeded to Lal Bahadur Sahstri (LBS) airport by road to take the special aircraft to Lucknow after a delay of about two hours.
"A bird hit the CM's helicopter after it took off from here (Varanasi) for Lucknow. Following this, the helicopter had to land here,” said Varanasi DM Kaushalraj Sharma.
Yogi had come to Varanasi on Saturday and had darshan of Lord Shiva at Kashi Vishwanath temple, besides reviewing development works and law and order of the PM’s parliamentary constituency. After a night's stay in Varanasi, he was leaving for Sultanpur where he had to pay homage to late Suryabhan Singh, the former MLA at his residence on Sunday morning.
In the mean time, the district administration got the news of chopper's emergency landing and rushed the local police force and PAC for CM's security and later paving his way to LBS airport.