ROURKELA/ BHUBANESWAR: Four passengers and two pilots had a miraculous escape when a nine-seater commercial aircraft of IndiaOne Air crash-landed on an open field at Gudiatola near Jalda, close to Rourkela, on Saturday afternoon.
The flight was on its way from Bhubaneswar to Rourkela when the mishap took place. The passengers and crew escaped with injuries after the pilots of the Cessna Grand Caravan 208B aircraft managed to force-land it on an isolated field barely 15 km to 20 km from Rourkela. The aircraft suffered damage to its front and nose.
Locals were the first responders. They rushed to the landing site, assisted fire services personnel from Rourkela in evacuating the trapped passengers and crew members, and prevented further danger by stopping the aircraft’s oil leakage through the application of foam.
In a statement, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) has been asked to investigate the mishap. The Directorate of Aviation of the Odisha government noted that the pilots, Captains Naveen Kadanga and Tarun Srivastava, ensured a safe landing, due to which lives were saved.
The pilots, along with passengers Sunil Agarwal, Sabita Agarwal, Sushant Biswal and Anita Sahu, have been admitted to hospitals in Rourkela.
The DGCA said the aircraft, with registration VT-KSS, took off from Bhubaneswar at around 12.25 pm. At about 1.14 pm, the crew declared a ‘Mayday’ to Rourkela ATC and made a forced landing at 1.20 pm in an open area near Kansor. The landing site was around 15 km to 20 km from Rourkela airport.
Chief Minister Mohan Charan Majhi said he was saddened to learn about the plane crash in Rourkela, but the news that all passengers were safe by the grace of Lord Jagannath was reassuring. “I have directed that immediate and best medical services be provided to the injured in this incident. I am personally monitoring the situation,” Majhi said in a post on X.
Commerce and Transport Minister Bibhuti Bhushan Jena was also monitoring the situation.
Rourkela SP Nitesh Wadhwani informed that the plane was flying at a height of around 2,000 feet and crash-landed three minutes before its scheduled arrival in Rourkela. The two pilots and four passengers sustained varying degrees of injuries but were stable, he added.
DIG (Western Range) Brijesh Kumar Rai said police and fire brigade personnel reached the spot, safely evacuated the occupants of the plane with the help of locals, and rushed them to hospital.
It was the first aircraft mishap in the flight history of Rourkela. A DGCA team was expected to reach Rourkela shortly to conduct the investigation.
IndiaOne Air is a scheduled commuter operator with a fleet of three Cessna Grand Caravan 208B aircraft based in Bhubaneswar. It has been operating within Odisha and to Jamshedpur and Visakhapatnam with viability gap funding support from the state government since 2022.