Hyderabad, September 16: The Andhra Pradesh government will make an insurance claim of Rs18 crore for the Bell-430 twin-engine helicopter carrying former chief minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy, its passengers and pilots. Reliance General Insurance of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group provided cover to the helicopter.
“The helicopter was fully insured and we are claiming the cover. The insurance company will now complete the formalities,” Manmohan Singh, the state infrastructure and investment secretary, told DNA. The infrastructure and investment department handles government-owned helicopters, while the AP Aviation Corporation takes care of the deployment of aircraft for VIP movement.
According to Singh, the helicopter, which was acquired in 1998, was insured for Rs11 crore, and the three passengers for Rs1 crore each. Though the helicopter has the capacity to carry seven people, it was carrying three on the day of the crash — YSR, his chief security officer ASC Wesley and principal secretary P Subrahmanyam.
The pilots’ insurance was about Rs4 crore. Each pilot was insured for Rs1 crore for life and Rs1 crore towards licence. Group captain SK Bhatia and captain MS Reddy were manning the helicopter on September 2, the day it ran into rough weather and crashed.
According to officials, the remains of the helicopter have already been brought to Hyderabad from the crash site. The insurance company, too, would formally assess the damage based on the helicopter wreckage and process the claim.
Meanwhile, the CBI has completed the onsite investigation into the crash and prima facie found that the helicopter had crashed and then exploded. There are about four investigation teams probing the incident.
According to sources, the investigators are keen to know the reason for the pilot flying at low altitude when the standard procedure is to fly at over 4,000 feet, particularly on hilly terrain.
“The helicopter seems to have hit a tree before collapsing. This obviously means that the aircraft was at a low altitude. Knowing that they were flying over a forest in hostile weather, the decision of the pilot to fly so low is a mystery,” a source tracking the developments said. The investigators are waiting for the cockpit voice recorder details before proceeding further.
-Agencies