Ukrainian aviation engineer Leonid Troushanchuk, responsible for clearing the Mesco Airlines helicopter that crashed off Mumbai coast while ferrying ONGC personnel a month ago, was found dead on Tuesday.His body was found hanging in his room at the guest house in Mumbai’s Juhu airport.According to police, the body was discovered by his cook Vijay Kumar who came to wake him up. On finding the door locked from inside, he broke it open with the help of others at the guest house. Troushanchuk’s death has landed the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in a spot because it’s still to conclude its inquiry into the ONGC crash. This was his second stint with Mesco as a line engineer and he was said to be depressed because his licence had been revoked after the August 11 crash.His wife died a year ago and his daughter, according to Mesco CEO Natasha Singh Sinha, is terminally ill in Ukraine. ‘‘After the DGCA cancelled his license, he went into deep depression. He was working here to support his terminally-ill daughter,’’ she said, adding ‘‘my request to you is not to publicise his death because morale (within Mesco) is already low.’’Sinha said Troushanchuk had taken the ‘‘temporary’’ revocation of his license very seriously. In Ukraine, once a license is revoked, there’s no way you can get it back: it’s revoked only after the fault of the person concerned is established, leaving no room for doubt.‘‘Leonid couldn’t understand that in India, the license is suspended immediately after an incident but is reinstated in case the inquiry clears the person. But he couldn’t reconcile to this and would constantly tell us that never in his entire life has an incident of this nature occurred with a flight he certified,’’ Sinha told The Indian Express from Mumbai. She denied the charge that Troushanchuk had not been paid his salary. ‘‘Our records show he has collected his full salary for the month of August.’’ As a line engineer, he was qualified to certify engines, avionics and air frames.He was responsible for daily checks of the MI-172s in the Mesco fleet at Mumbai. He had signed both the pre-flight inspection certificate and the flight release certificate — it’s the last clearance for a chopper take-off — of the MI-172 which crashed last month.With the crew killed in the crash, Troushanchuk was a key figure in the DGCA inquiry. He had apparently been questioned extensively by officials soon after the crash. While official sources felt that his death could adversely impact the inquiry proceedings, Sinha said that DGCA queries were being handled by the Quality Control Manager. ‘‘Leonid’s statement is already there.’’ Troushanchuk first entered into a contract with Mesco in 1997 but was taken off rolls when the airline was grounded in 2000 over a probe into its finances. But he was hired again in Oct 2002 after the company was cleared by the court. His contract was for a year and would have been due for renewal in a month’s time. After the crash, the airline asked Troushanchuk to leave for Ukraine in October as it was difficult to keep a foreign employee, especially when his license was no longer valid. ‘‘In fact, he was to leave for Delhi yesterday to provide us technical help for our Shimla operations until then.’’ (With inputs by Dev Chatterjee)
