Helicopters and VIPs have had a rather tumultuous relationship given the number of emergency and crash landings that have occurred over the past few years. While the lessons learnt form each of these incidents have forced a series of new regulations, human error coupled with non-compliance of procedures continues to cast a shadow over the safety of helicopter operations. As YSR Reddy’s chopper went missing, many VIPs were reminded of their very own chopper scares. 

Former Punjab CM Amarinder Singh, who survived one such chopper mishap, told The Express, “I have had two accidents. The scary incident was once when our chopper went into electrical wires just after taking off from the helipad. Fortunately, the cables snapped and the chopper crash-landed from relatively low height.” 

BJP vice-president Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, too had similar scares twice. “Rajnath Singh and I were going to Rampur last year, when we landed on a place as per the pilot’s coordinates. There was problem with the coordinates and we landed on a place which had dry grass that caught fire. Fortunately, the pilot used his presence of mind and we landed at some other place.”

Aviation experts point out that the primary culprit in most of the chopper accidents is the pilots’ tendency to operate under Visual Flight Rules (VFR) instead of the Instrument Flight Rules (IFR). IFR allows pilots to fly by just relying on the instrument panels even if they cannot see anything outside the cockpit windows. The VFR, on the other hand, are used by pilots to fly by relying on what all they can see from the cockpit.

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