Pune (Maharashtra): Three persons including two pilots and an aircraft engineer were killed after a helicopter crashed and caught fire in the hilly terrain of Maharashtra's Pune district on Wednesday morning, police said. An official said that the helicopter belonging to a Delhi-based private aviation firm took off from the Oxford Golf Course helipad here and was heading to Juhu in Mumbai.
The incident took place at 6.45 am near a hilly terrain in the Bavdhan area, which is close to the Oxford Golf Course, according to police. "Three persons have died in the helicopter crash. Our teams along with fire department vehicles have reached the spot," Pimpri Chinchwad Commissioner of Police Vinay Kumar Choubey said.
After the crash, the chopper caught fire, police said. They said the cause of the crash had yet to be ascertained.
This is the second incident of its kind in the Pune hills after a private helicopter on a Mumbai-Hyderabad flight crashed in the region on August 24, injuring four, and before that, on May 3, a helicopter flying to pick up Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sushma Andhare had crashed near a helipad in Raigad. Maharashtra Higher and Technical education Minister Chandrakant Patil said that as per preliminary information, the crash may have occurred owing to some technical snag and suspected poor visibility, which will be probed.
An official said that the police control was informed of the tragedy by a caller and immediately a team was set up, including the local fire brigade, which rushed to the crash spot, in a hilly and densely forested area of the ghats. The police also informed the local aviation authorities and a team of experts is rushing from Mumbai for a probe into the tragedy. The Hinjewadi Police Station along with aviation officials are coordinating to assess the situation and other details, including the identity of the victims, shifting their bodies for autopsy. (With Agency Inputs)
