Chopper crash: Pall of gloom at Bandra ONGC Colony where two dead officers lived

 At ONGC (oil an natural gas corporation) Colony in Bandra Reclamation where two of the five ONGC deputy general managers lived, a number of friends and colleagues came to express grief along with Union petroleum minister, Dharmendra Pradhan. At least 5 people died when a Pawan Hans chopper carrying senior ONGC officials crashed off Mumbai coast on Saturday. 

"The senior officers go for supervision once a while. Their team of hundreds are working on the platform in the sea. It is very unfortunate that the senior officers met with this accident. It is a huge loss not only for the corporation but also the country", said a colleague of Jose Anthony and P N Sreenivasan, who holds the post of DGM in ONGC. 

The bodies recovered were sent to Cooper hospital for postmortem and funeral will be carried on Sunday morning. Both had left home at 9.30 am on Saturday and were going for supervising their platforms. 

"All five officers were scheduled to come back in the evening after the supervision. It was only through media we learnt about the crash. We then confirmed in our office about the crash and informed their families," said another officer who didn't wish to be named. 

According to colleagues, Jose had recently given interview for the post of General Manager and was expecting a promotion soon. Jose is survived by wife and two daughters. Sreenivasan was working as DGM for mechanical division of ONGC and was living in Bandra for last to 7 to 8 years and was remembered as "very humble person" by neighbours. He is survived by wife, son, daughter and father. 

"The black box will only reveal details about the accident and the search for it is going on," said Ashish Shelar, city BJP president who had accompanied petroleum minister.