CID team to grill ATC staff

Hyderabad, Sept 5 :

 The sleuths of Crime Investigation Department (Cid) of the Andhra Pradesh police launched their probe into the death of Chief Minister Dr Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and four others, who were killed when the Bell-430 helicopter they were travelling in crashed at Nallamalla forest in Kurnool district on Wednesday.

The team headed by Additional Director General A Sivanarayana will probe the possibility of a conspiracy behind the crash. A case of suspicious death has been booked by the police at Atmakur police station, which is nearest to the crash site atop the hillock near Rudurakodur in Kurnool. A four-member committee of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation has already started a probe into the crash. Sivanarayana held discussions with senior district police officials and constituted a special team headed by Additional Superintendent of Police N Balaji Rao.

 
The police team, along with the members of the DGCA probe team, has already visited the acCident site and recovered the flight voice recorder of the helicopter. The copter is believed to have crashed after veering off the flight path and hitting the cliff of the hillock. Investigating the real reason behind the crash would be a challenging task for both the DGCA and Cid teams, as all the five occupants of the helicopter killed in the crash and the helicopter was also badly damaged.

 
The Cid team will try to find out the answers to a host of questions ranging from why an old helicopter with a history of snags was chosen for the chief minister when a new one was available. The Cid will probe why the ATC granted permission to the helicopter to fly from Hyderabad to Chittoor in spite of the fact that it would have to face inclement weather and heavy rainfall at Nallamalla forest in Kurnool en route.

 
The Cid will question ATC staffers in Hyderabad and Chennai on why they failed to notice the crucial fact that the helicopter had deviated 18 kms east from its regular flight path. The Hyderabad ATC has claimed that it had handed over the control of the helicopter to the Chennai ATC when the chopper went missing, but it is not clear whether the Chennai ATC was monitoring the movement of the chopper.
 
Meanwhile, the four member DGCA team including Captain Irshad Ahmad, Sanjay Brahmani, S Balaji Rao and Mahinderjit Singh, has held discussions with the Kurnool district authorities and put in place a coordination mechanism to facilitate the probe. The team has gathered crucial documents from the district administration including the post-mortem reports of all the five victims.