Mumbai: A helicopter crashed within minutes of its take-off in the hilly area of Pune, killing two pilots and an engineer, on Wednesday morning.
The helicopter was chartered by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and it was enroute from Pune to Mumbai where the NCP chief, Sunil Tatkare, was to use it for his visit to Raigad, a district adjoining Mumbai, according to news reports.
The helicopter crashed at around 6.45 am in the hilly Bavdhan area and caught fire. While the exact cause of the crash is yet to be ascertained, the police suspect the accident was caused by dense fog in the area. They said that four fire tankers from the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) and the Pune Metropolitan Region Development Authority (PMRDA) were rushed to the spot.
Those dead have been identified as pilots Paramjit Singh and GK Pillai, and engineer Pritam Bharadwaj.
According to preliminary information, the helicopter belonged to Heritage Aviation.
Pictures and videos of the incident show the debris of the helicopter on fire and smoke rising from it.