YSR's chopper pilots served MP CM Chouhan too

BHOPAL: The Madhya Pradesh government had often used the services of the two pilots, who were recently killed in a helicopter crash along with Andhra Pradesh Chief Minsiter, Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, till a year ago to fly the State Chief Minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan and other VVIPs.

"Since Madhya Pradesh government also has Bell 430 helicopters just as Andhra Pradesh government does, the former had often asked the latter to loan the services of Group Captain S K Bhatia and Captain M S Reddy till last year to fly Chouhan and other VVIPs in the State as both had a lot of expeirnce on these choppers," official sources said here today.

However, last year the Madhya Pradesh government recruited two captains - Captain Rajiv Gupta and Colonel Dinesh Shrivastava - as helicopter pilots and since then they are doing this job and the State government stopped using the services of pilots from Andhra Pradesh, they said.

Both the deceased pilots - Captain Bhatia and Reddy had been familiar faces at the Raja Bhoj Airport here as the two pilots often used to come to Bhopal to fly Chouhan during his first stint of Chief Ministership, sources said.

Another pilot, Captain Jaganmohan Manthena had also flown Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister when Captain Bhatia and Reddy were not available, they said. PTI AS YRM rys 09161346 MUMBAI NNNN