Air Force orders inquiry into incident involving president's chopper

The Indian Air Force has instituted a court of inquiry into an incident when the rotor blades of a helicopter carrying president Pratibha Patil hit a shed at the Bhubaneshwar airport today.

"A court of inquiry has been ordered into the incident," IAF spokesperson Wing Commander TK Singha said here.

"The helicopter was returning from Puri and Konark, and had landed at the Bhubaneshwar airport. While taxiing in, its blades hit a shed near the parking bay and were damaged. The incident took place around 1700 hours today. Everyone in the chopper are safe," he said.

The president carried on with her programme as usual after the incident, Singha said adding Patil, her husband Devisingh Shekhawat and Orissa governor MC Bhandari were being flown in a VVIP entourage of three Mi-8 VVIP helicopters of the IAF.     

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation will also probe various aspects of the incident, official sources said.

This is the second major incident involving helicopters of the presidential entourage.

The first incident was a near-collision between choppers of the VVIP fleet and an Air India aircraft at Mumbai airport on February 9.

The incident had occurred when the helicopters landed on the tarmac when Air India's flight IC-866 was picking up speed for take-off. The AI pilot averted an accident by aborting the take-off and swerving to the taxiway in a matter of seconds.

A probe, jointly carried out by the IAF and the DGCA, had found that the chopper landed on the runway without clearance from the air traffic control.