Mumbai chopper crash report within a week -Governance Now

Mumbai chopper crash report within a week

The DGCA does not have enough manpower to do safety audits, claims air safety expert

Geetanjali Minhas | December 12, 2016 | Mumbai

#DGCA #Mumbai #Helicopter crash #air safety

Four-seater Robinson R-44 helicopter

A two member team from the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is conducting an investigation into a helicopter crash in Mumbai. A senior official of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) told Governance Now that the results will be known after a week, when the investigations are over.

To a query if adequate air safety standards exist, the official said all safety standards exist, but these have to be followed.

The four-seater Robinson R-44 helicopter crashed into the hilly terrain of Aarey Colony in suburban Goregaon on Sunday morning, killing its pilot Praful Kumar Mishra (57) and injuring three others - Ritesh Modi (36) and his wife Vrinda Modi (33) and technician Sanjeev Shankar (24).

The chopper took off from Juhu Airport at 11.52 am with the Modi couple, residents of Borivali, who had booked a 15-minute ride.

According to officials of the Juhu Air Traffic Control (ATC), Mishra got in touch with them at 11.56 am and told them that he would have to crash-land the aircraft due to problems in its clutch. Juhu ATC officials said the chopper crashed exactly a minute later — at 11.57 am.

Speaking on safety measures, retired airline pilot and air safety expert, Mohan Ranganathan said, “There is a lot of cutting corners and DGCA just turns a blind eye. The directorate does not have proper manpower to do surveillance safety audits. People are just signing on dotted lines without properly completing the audits. This is a big problem.”

However, Rohit Kapoor, member, Business Aircraft Operators Association and MD Arrow Aircraft Sails and Charters Pvt Ltd, said that though safety measures are always in place, a technical snag can happen to any aircraft. “Here it seems the pilot had made a radio transmission contact. The investigations will reveal if it was a technical failure or something else.”

Aman Aviation had purchased the helicopter from Pawn Hans four years ago for commercial use. Apart from joyrides, Aman Aviation provides services for aerial advertisement, film shooting and geological surveys. The company charges between Rs 3,200 for a 10-minute ride and Rs 17,000 for 60 minutes per person for the joyrides.

Comments

Other News

BRICS at 20: From economic weight to global influence

This year marks 20 years of BRICS, with India set to host the grouping’s leaders’ summit this weekend. The anniversary offers an opportune moment to assess BRICS’ growing importance at a time when the effectiveness of global governance and the credibility of multilateralism are under in

Former president Ram Nath Kovind on some of his unforgettable journeys

Triumph of the Indian Republic: My Life, My Struggles By Ram Nath Kovind Rupa Publications, 400 pages, Rs 795 All our presidents so far stand out, each for a different reason. Ram Nath Kovind, the 14th president of India, from 2017 t

Uday Kotak on history, Indian economy, growth and more

Pathbreakers: How 10 Visionary Leaders Transformed India by award-winning journalists By Sucheta Dalal and Debashis Basu Rupa Publications, 304 pages, Rs 695

₹5,000 crore saved from suspected financial fraud

In a significant gain for citizen protection in the digital economy, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has helped prevent suspected cyber fraud losses of more than ₹5,000 crore through its Financial Fraud Risk Indicator (FRI) within fifteen months of its launch on May 22, 2025. This money did

Capital acquisition proposals worth Rs 1.10 lakh crore for defence forces cleared

The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), under the chairmanship of Raksha Mantri Rajnath Singh, on Monday accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN), that is, in-principle administrative approval to various acquisition proposals of the defence forces at an estimated cost of about Rs 1,10,000 crore.

How Rafi, Raj Kapoor helped pave the way for a great uranium deal

There`s a certain moment in diplomacy that`s too personal to be captured in a communiqué, too small to make the front page, but more revealing than the front page. This week, prime minister Narendra Modi reached Tashkent and, amid the pomp of state visits, managed to evoke the old Bollywood tunes