Sohel lost contact with radar within 30 min of take-off

While the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has initiated an inquiry into the aircraft crash in which a trainee commercial pilot Sohel Ansari was killed, the chief flying instructor of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) said that within half an hour of the take off, he lost contact with the radar and his aircraft. It was later found crashed nearly 90 kilometres away from the runway.

A resident of the Tadiwala Road area in Pune, Sohel was undergoing the training of commercial pilot in IGRUA at Raibareli. 

As part of the training, Sohel had take a solo sortie from Gondia’s Birsi airport on Tuesday afternoon. The aircraft was found on Wednesday in a damaged state. Sohel’s parents had gone to Gondia where Sohel’s body was handed over to them. 

Yasin shaikh, local Congress worker and his neighbour said, “Sohel’s parents wanted to cremate his body in Pune, but his body was so damaged that they decided to cremate his body at their native place in Uttar Pradesh which was closer from there.

“DGCA has initiated an inquiry in the crash incident. Air Commodore (retd) TK Chatterjee, chief flying instructor of IGRUA said, “As a standard procedure after any crash, the DGCA has initiated an inquiry. 

The black box installed in the Diamond 40 aircraft does not have crash proof black box, so the condition of the black box will have to be checked.

Sohel had completed 90 hours of flying out of the total 200 hours of flying required during the course which means that he had sufficient experience of flying. His aircraft took off at 12.40 pm on Tuesday and he was supposed to land at 2.45 pm, Chatterjee added.