A five-seater chopper flying BJP leaders Eknath Khadse, Vikas Mathkari, and Shrikant Bharatiya from Jalgaon to Pune on Friday faced a technical snag leading to a mid-air scare followed by an emergency landing at the Lohegaon airport in Pune.
“We had a narrow escape,” Mathkari, the Pune city unit chief of the BJP later said.
Khadse, the leader of Opposition in the Assembly, was on his way to a function organised by BJP corporator Yogesh Tilekar in Kondhwa, when smoke started emanating from the chopper hired from the First Future Air Service Pvt Ltd.
Mathkari said the chopper carrying him and Bharatiya reached Jalgaon from Pune at 1.30pm to pick up Khadse. The three BJP leaders and the two pilots had taken off around 2.05pm from Jalgaon. It was around 2.25pm that smoke started emanating from the cockpit and the pilots called ATC for an emergency landing.
29/12/12 Indian Express
