The trainer aircraft had taken off from Birsi airstrip in Gondia district on Saturday.
Gondia/Balaghat:
An air safety team (AST) of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Sunday arrived at Birsi airport in Maharashtra’s Gondia district to probe the plane crash that killed two pilots in Madhya Pradesh a day earlier, an official said.
Madhya Pradesh’s Balaghat Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) Durgesh Armon told PTI that the black box of the crashed plane of the Indira Gandhi National Flying Academy (IGRAU) is yet to be found by the authorities.
The bodies of flight instructor pilot Mohit Thakur and trainee pilot Vrikshaka Maheshwari, who died in the plane crash in Balaghat district, were handed over to their families on Sunday.
IGRAU spokesperson Ramkishore Dwivedi said, “The bodies of both the deceased have been handed over to their families after completing formalities and the cause of the accident will be known only after investigation.”
Thakur (24) was a resident of Brungal in Chamba district of Himachal Pradesh and trainee pilot Maheshwari (19) was a resident of Gandhidham in Kutch district of Gujarat.
The trainer aircraft had taken off from Birsi airstrip in Gondia district bordering Balaghat at around 3.06 pm on Saturday. Officials had said that it lost contact with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) at 3.11 pm and crashed into the hills near Bhukkutola village in Balaghat and caught fire.
Meanwhile, a police officer in Madhya Pradesh refuted the claim that the plane may have crashed due to bad weather in a hilly area, about 40 km from the district headquarters in Balaghat. He said the weather was clear.
An IGRAU official had said on Saturday that bad weather could have led to the accident.
An MP police official said teams from ATC Gondia and Amethi are yet to reach the accident site. Meanwhile, Dwivedi said, “A two-member air safety team has reached Birsi to investigate the accident and the exact cause can be ascertained only after they submit their report.” The aircraft involved in the accident was a Diamond DA-40 type single-engine Was.” Aircraft and such aircraft do not have a black box. Moreover, the aircraft was completely destroyed after the crash”. PTI Cor Lal Aru NSK NSK
