Gujarat trainee pilot, instructor killed in MP aircraft crash

Balaghat Superintendent of Police Sameer Saurabh said two badly burnt bodies were recovered from the spot which falls under the Lanji police station.
He said a charred body believed to be that of Thakur was found on the hills of Lanji and Kirnapur areas, about 40 km from the Balaghat district headquarters, near the site of the crash.

“We received information at around 3:45 pm (about the crash). As the area falls under the Naxalite-infested belt, security forces were summoned. Other personnel reached the spot after the area was cordoned off. We have recovered the bodies of the flight instructor and the woman pilot which are badly burnt,” Saurabh added.

The aircraft belonged to the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Uran Akademi (IGRUA) which was on a training sortie, and prima facie bad weather caused the crash, said an official from Gondia in neighbouring Maharashtra.

Deputy Inspector General of Police Anurag Sharma told PTI the trainer aircraft took off from the Birsi airstrip in Gondia district bordering Balaghat at 3.06 pm. It lost connection with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) at 3.11 pm.

The parents of the woman trainee pilot — Chandanbhai Maheshwari, a shipping businessman based in Gandhidham and mother Jalpaben — were informed about the tragedy around 6 pm Saturday by IGRUA located in Fursatganj, near Lucknow, where she was training.

A relative of the deceased trainee, Vijaybhai Kachoriya, said, “She had joined this school three years ago”.

Her younger sister Atri Maheshwari, 16, who spoke to Vrukshanka last on Friday, said, “She had called to wish me for my Class 11 exams yesterday.

Among the top scorers in the Class 10 boards, Vrukshanka had won a silver medal in a (state-level) karate championship and wished to join the Air Force”. Vrukshanka did her higher secondary at Welham Girls’ School in Dehradun before joining the academy. Her remains will be brought home by her uncles, said Kachoriya.