Two trainee pilots from Telangana among 29 killed in air crashes in last 9 years
Two trainee pilots from Telangana were among the 29 pilots who died in aircraft crashes in India between 2014 and 2022
HYDERABAD: Two trainee pilots from Telangana were among the 29 pilots who died in aircraft crashes in India between 2014 and 2022. This revelation came from a Ministry of Civil Aviation response to an RTI plea filed by Telangana RTI activist Robin Vinay Kumar Zaccheus.
In July 2022, a 35-year-old activist from Hyderabad filed an RTI plea with the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau, seeking information on the total number of pilots and student pilots who lost their lives in aircraft disasters in India between the years of 2014 and 2022.
While two pilots were killed in Delhi, seven student pilots were killed in Mumbai. Two pilots died in each of Kerala and Odisha, while three trainees died in the state of Madhya Pradesh and two pilots killed in the province of Arunachal Pradesh.
Most of the pilots who died in these crashes were either flying Cessna-152 or Cessna-172 or Dauphin N3-N4, out of all the crashes. The majority of aircraft crashes occured in Mumbai City, with seven crashes in the past nine years resulting in pilot deaths.
According to the RTI reply, 29 pilots were killed in tragic aircraft crashes across the country in the last nine years, with two pilots killed in Telangana's Sultanpur and Nalgonda districts.
The Sultanpur pilot was flying a Cessna-172, while the Nalgonda pilot was flying a Cessna-152. M/s Wings Aviation Lts and Flytech Aviation Academy were the aircraft's operators for the pilots from Nalgonda and Sultanpur, respectively.
Reacting to the Ministry's response to his RTI plea, Robin Vinay Kumar Zaccheus said, "Aircraft crashes have become far more common in recent years, resulting in the deaths of pilots. People should be informed about the underlying causes of these tragic incidents, whether they are technical, related to poor aircraft condition, or due to pilot error. The Indian government must take concrete steps to prevent these airplane crashes".
Two Indian Air Force pilots were killed when a MiG-21 trainer plane crashed at Barmer, Rajasthan, in July 2022. The plane's debris was discovered on a half-kilometer stretch of land near Bhimda hamlet, Barmer district. Even though the RTI statistic indicates 29 pilot deaths, the number could be substantially higher based on recent pilot deaths in the country.