Week later, mystery of YSR chopper crash | unsolved

A week after the helicopter crash that killed Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, there is still no light on the circumstances that led to the accident.

It is still not clear if it was a human error or a technical failure that led to the crash of the Bell 430 on a hillock in the dense Nallamalla forests, 40 nautical miles from Kurnool, last week on Wednesday.

The Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and state police's Crime Investigation Department (CID), which were the first to launch the probe, are still struggling to find answers to key questions.

The state government Monday announced two more parallel probes by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and a two-member expert committee.

Officials engaged in the four parallel inquiries are looking into all angles, including sabotage. There are many questions that need an answer -- was the weather warning issued, was the chopper properly checked before it took off, was it carrying an Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT) and whether there were any lapses on the part of pilots or Air Traffic Control staff in responding to the requests by the crew to help them.

The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) or black box recovered from the wreckage is yet to be decoded. "If necessary the CVR would be sent to the United States for decoding," said state Home Minister P Sabita Indra Reddy.

Hoping to find the answers, the probe panel of the DGCA was in Kurnool on Wednesday along with Chief Secretary P. Ramakant Reddy and Director General of Police S.S.P. Yadav to visit the crash site.

The panel headed by RK Tiyagi, chairperson and managing director of Pawan Hans, will be divided into two groups. While one team will make an aerial survey, the other will make a ground inspection of the crash site to understand the circumstances that could have led to the crash.

The DGCA officials will also meet local police and civic officials and forensic experts who conducted autopsy on the five bodies in Kurnool.

YSR, as the chief minister was popularly known, his special secretary, chief security officer and two pilots were killed on Sep 2, an hour after he took off from Hyderabad for Chittoor district to launch a mass contact programme.

The helicopter crashed in bad weather minutes after it lost contact with Air Traffic Control at 9.12 am. The charred bodies of the victims with the wreckage were found 24 hours later after one of the biggest searches in India's aviation history involving Indian Air Force helicopters, fighter jets and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The ground search operation involved army, paramilitary forces, police and even tribals living in the forest.

ANDHRA CM YSR REDDY DIES IN | CHOPPER CRASH

The helicopter was traced in mangled state on Rudrakonda hill, 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool..




Chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy, known better as YSR, died in a helicopter crash on Thursday after his helicopter carrying him went missing over a dense forest area dominated by Maoist rebels.

Bodies of YSR Reddy and four others werer found, according to PTI.

The helicopter was traced in mangled state on Thursday on Rudrakonda hill, 40 nautical miles east of Kurnool.

The state-owned twin engine, seven-seater helicopter, Bell-430, he was flying in disappeared over the Nallamalla forest area in heavy rains at 9.35am on Wednesday, about an hour after it started, state officials said.

The chief minister was on his way from Hyderabad to Chittoor in Rayalaseema region in southern Andhra Pradesh on an official programme.

Reddy, 60, a powerful politician who had never lost an election during his 30-year political career, led the Congress party to victories in both state and Parliament elections in May, and was just months into his second term as chief minister.

He had won his first term as chief minister in 2004, defeating N. Chandrababu Naidu of the Telugu Desam Party, or TDP, son-in-law of the popular actor-politician and former chief minister N. T. Rama Rao.

Reddy, a second generation Roman Catholic Christian, was born on 8 July 1949 in Pulivendula, a small town in the state’s Kadapa district. Before taking a plunge into politics in 1978, Reddy served as medical officer at CSI Campbell Hospital in Jammalamadugu in Kadapa district after graduating in medical science from the MR College of Gulbarga.

The four-time Lok Sabha member has served in various capacities both in the state government and in the Congress party. He served the Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee as its president twice, once in 1983-85 and then in 1998-2000.

Between 1999 and 2004, he was the leader of the Opposition in the eleventh State Assembly. And earlier, from 1980 to 1983, YSR had also served as a minister in the state government, holding portfolios of rural development, medical and health and education.

Becoming chief minister was a long cherished dream for YSR. Prior to the 2004 state elections, he led an unprecedented 1,400km-long paadayatra covering all the backward areas in the state. He said he was on a mission to understand the ground realities of the people.