India paramilitary plane crash leaves 10 dead

“Why is it always the family of a soldier that has to cry every time?”

“Jawab dijiye (give me an answer)”. He was speaking after paying the ceremonial last tributes and placing of wreaths on the mortal remains of the ten personnel who were killed in the crash yesterday, at the Safdarjung airport here. “It pains us. And we are with them in this hour of crisis”, he said.

A BSF air plane crashed in Dwarka, neighbor of New Delhi today at around 09:50 AM IST. “I would like to add that till the time an aircraft is airworthy, there is no problem in flying it”. The plane was over 20 years old.

“This is worrying, for us and everyone who is associated with this wing”.

Captain Shivrain’s family has alleged that the aircraft was old.

“(The incident at Dwarka) was a tragedy.

Captain Bhagwati Prasad Bhat diverted the aircraft from populated areas to prevent any civilian deaths, say sources. “The reports coming in are wrong”.

For, going by the website of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, the aircraft should not have been in the air as it showed that the aircraft’s Certificate of Airworthiness (CofA) had expired on March 24, 2014 or nearly 18 months ago.

There had been some confusion over the airworthiness of the Beech Super King Air B-200 aircraft.

All 10 occupants were killed when a chartered plane ferrying BSF personnel to Ranchi crashed on Tuesday morning shortly after taking off from here, officials and witnesses said.

Most of the eight BSF personnel on board were technicians headed to the Jharkhand capital to fix a helicopter.

Eyewitnesses said the plane hit a wall before bursting into flames and then crashed into a water body.

Casualties in Tuesday’s crash could have been just seven, had BSF officials not changed travel plans of three of their technicians at the last moment. “It already has a number of challenges to meet vis-a-vis keeping the two most important borders of the country with Pakistan and Bangaldesh secure and this accident is surely a big test of nerves for the top brass and the government”, another official serving in the wing said.

Deputy director of AAIB R S Passi will be the chairman of the committee while Capt Anant Sethi, chief pilot of Madhya Pradesh government as its Operational Member, besides, two other members from the Bureau.