Missing copter exposes chinks in Chhatisgharh govt`s crisis mgt

Raipur: The Chhattisgarh government's failure to trace four crew members and the missing state helicopter has raised questions on the preparedness of the insurgency-hit state government in crisis management.
"It is matter of shame for the state having failed to trace the eurocopter EC-135 for five days of its missing on July 14 from Bhopal when it was lying less than two kilometers from the state's border within Madhya Pradesh, about 235 km from the state capital," a state government official admitted.
Since Left wing extremism has affected all the 18 districts of the state and when the rebels are hyperactive in the Rajnandgaon district, the ground forces and especially the intelligence network supposedly are strong enough to meet any situation, a senior police officer said.
However, the plane crashed on a hilltop merely one and a half km from Rajnandgaon district border and the bodies were lying there for five days but the state administration had no clue, was surprising, to say the least, he said.
The exercise to trace the missing copter also raised several eyebrows, as there was no coordination between various departments to find the two missing pilots and the two technical staff.
The state Civil Aviation Department told the media that the copter went missing with only two pilots whereas the Bhopal air traffic control had been stating from the very first that the copter had four persons on board when it went missing. It took the Principal Secretary aviation S V Prabhat nine hours after it went missing to confirm that the plane had two pilots Capt A S Sidhu and Capt Vikram Savekar, aviation engineer Amitabh Soni and senior technician Manish Badonia.
It was ultimately a sarpanch, of Batarkata police station under Rajnandgaon district who informed the police that the crashed helicopter and the dead bodies were lying in an area about 5 km from the Lamra village and were recovered subsequently on July 18 in the same Lanji area of Balaghat district.
23/07/07 Zee News

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Categories: General Aviation Jul 2007, Safety Jul 2007