RAIPUR: The AgustaWestland helicopter of the Chhattisgarh government that crashed on Thursday night at the Raipur airport killing two pilots onboard had suffered technical problems in the past, an official said.
The twin-engine 'AW 109 power elite' helicopter, used to ferry VIPs including the chief minister and ministers, was also embroiled in controversy after the then BJP government faced allegations of corruption in its procurement in 2007.
Notably, the state government had hired a private chopper for Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel when he recently visited several districts as part of a public interaction campaign.
The AgustaWestland chopper crashed at Swami Vivekanand Airport here around 9.10 pm on Thursday when the state government's senior pilot Captain Gopal Krishna Panda was on a night practice sortie with examiner of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) Captain A P Shrivastava who had arrived from Delhi.
Both Panda and Shrivastava were killed in the crash. "The chopper's left engine was overhauled once and then it had to be replaced after it stopped functioning properly. Besides, its right engine was also overhauled twice, the last time in 2017," a state government official said on Friday.
In February 2018, the same chopper, ferrying then chief minister Raman Singh, had made a precautionary landing within a few minutes of take-off from the Raipur police lines helipad after a technical snag was detected, he said.
Earlier, in 2016, when Singh was flying to the state capital from Sukma district, the chopper experienced a sudden jolt and loss of height in mid-air due to a technical snag, the official said.
"Similarly, in May 2016, the same chopper, carrying then state minister Brijmohan Agrawal, had to make precautionary landing after an engine snag was found," he added.
After the crash, a government press note said here that initial indications suggested technical malfunction as the cause, and a detailed technical investigation by the DGCA and the state government shall be undertaken to ascertain the exact reason.
A DGCA team has arrived to conduct a probe, a senior police official said, adding that the tail rotor of the chopper seemed to have malfunctioned, causing the crash.
According to an eyewitness, the chopper, flying at a low height, suddenly fell down and turned into wreckage.
"I was outside the airport and was talking to my family on video call. It was night time and only the light beaming from the chopper was visible. I was showing it to my family on video call. Suddenly the chopper started coming down rapidly. Before I could realize what was happening, it crashed to the ground. It did not catch fire," said Suman Tiwari, who works as an engineer for a private contractor engaged for civil construction at the airport.
Captain Panda (58), a former Air Force Wing Commander, had acquired a commercial pilot license in 2005.
He had a vast flying experience of about 9000 hours and served as a flight trainer/instructor with the DGCA and also as chief pilot for the Tamil Nadu government before entering the service of the Chhattisgarh government in 2011 as a senior pilot, a state aviation department official said.
"Panda had negotiated extreme flying challenges in the past. In one such incident when then CM Raman Singh was returning from Sukma in 2016, the chopper experienced a technical snag in the auto-pilot system causing it to plunge about 100 feet. But Panda, who was in the flying seat, managed to control the situation," he said.
The chopper was procured at a cost of USD 6.57 million (Rs 26.58 crore) in 2007 by the then BJP government from a Hong Kong-based company which was an authorized dealer of the Italian firm AgustaWestland.
In July 2007, the Chhattisgarh government's helicopter 'Maina' had crashed on a forested hill along the border with Maharashtra, killing four persons onboard including two pilots.
A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report had said that failure of the state aviation department to finalise the first offer for purchase of the AgustaWestland chopper within the due date and its subsequent procurement at a higher rate led to an extra expenditure of Rs 65 lakh.
Citing the CAG's findings, opposition Congress in 2016 alleged that the Raman Singh government ignored all norms to favour AgustaWestland. The BJP rejected the charge as "politically motivated and baseless".
Captain Shrivastava was a native of Delhi and his family members reached Raipur this morning to take possession of his mortal remains.
The body was sent to the national capital by air, Raipur Senior Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal said.
Captain Panda, who hailed from Sambalpur district in neighbouring Odisha, had a house in Raipur. His final rites will be performed at Devendra Nagar crematorium here in the evening, Agrawal said.