Hyderabad - Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy has died in a helicopter crash along with four others, a highly placed source involved in India's largest ever search and rescue operation said.
A Bell 430 helicopter that was carrying YSR Reddy, principal secretary S. Subrahmanyan and chief security officer ASC Wesley was reported missing at 9.35 am, an hour after it took off. The last radio communication from the pilot of the helicopter to the Flight Information Region in Chennai was "Victor Tango Alpha Papa Golf calling Chennai Radio. We are from Hyderabad heading for Chittoor...we are climbing 550 (5500 ft)."
The helicopter was being piloted by Group Captain S.K. Bhatia with co-pilot Captain M.S. Reddy.
Investigators said the helicopter, which was scheduled to fly to the Chittoor district, which is no more than 500 km away from the CM's residence, could have developed a snag soon after entering the space over the dense tiger- and rebel Maoist-infested Nallamala forests where rain was thick and visibility was zero.
Immediately after the helicopter was declared missing, the central and state governments launched a massive search and rescue operation, which included deploying thousands of CRPF personnel, state police, forest and revenue officials, elite Greyhound commandos, specially trained to fight Naxalites and specialized anti-terrorist force Organization for Counter Terrorism and Operations (Octopus) teams.
A low-flying aircraft of ISRO had last evening scoured the area and took 41 imagery photos of the area. Four helicopters were also pressed into service for search operations in the Nallamalai forest in Kurnool district yesterday.
On Thursday morning, India's Air Force confirmed sighting part of the wreckage in a dense forest, 40 nautical miles east of Maoist-infested Kurnool mountainous area. "It (the helicopter) is on top of a hill at a distance 40 nautical miles (70 kms) east of Kurnool. Our helicopters are there. We are trying to locate whether there are any survivors," Air Commodore Sagar Bharti of the Bangalore air command told reporters earlier today.
"We are not sure if it has crashed or not. We are sure we have located the helicopter but we are not sure whether there are any survivors," he said.
A highly placed source, however, said two IAF helicopters have landed in the crash site and the bodies of the passengers as well as the pilots of the missing helicopter have been recovered.
"The (helicopter) wreckage was found mangled and smouldering. We have recovered the bodies from the wreckage. Nobody survived the crash. An official announcement will be made soon," the source said, on condition of anonymity, as he is not supposed to speak to the media on the issue.
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