Chopper with 19 passengers makes emergency landing on road

ITANAGAR/TEZPUR: A Pawan Hans helicopter today made an emergency landing on a road due to inclement weather at Gohpur Balijan in Sonitpur district near the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border.

According to officials of the Civil Aviation Department of Arunachal Pradesh, the chopper was on its way from Naharlagun to Guwahati with 19 passengers and five crew members on board.

The helicopter made an emergency landing on a road connecting Gohpur with Itanagar at Balijan due to inclement weather. "There was no technical problem and no one was injured," the officials said.

The chopper took off from Naharlagun helipad at 8.40 AM for Guwahati after ascertaining technical fitness and weather clearances from ATC Tezpur, Jorhat and Guwahati, a Civil Aviation department release said.

After flying for about 30 minutes, the chopper encountered very bad weather conditions and the pilots, instead of taking any risk, made a precautionary landing on a well carpeted village link road, it said. The aircraft halted there for one hour and 45 minutes and returned to Naharlagun as weather conditions en route Guwahati was not improving.

After the helicopter's landing, the road was blocked leading to a traffic snarl and a large number of people from nearby areas gathered to have a look at the chopper.

Arunachal Pradesh civil aviation secretary has ordered the director civil aviation to carry out an inquiry into the matter for ascertaining the cause of the incident and fixing accountability, if any discrepancy was found, the release added.