Raigad: A helicopter en route to pick up Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sushma Andhare crashed while landing in Mahad taluka of Raigad district on Friday. Andhare was not in the helicopter at the time of the accident.
The pilot of the chopper suffered injuries. The same chopper had dropped NCP SP leader Jayant Patil to Mumbai. As per a live video recording shared by Andhare which had gone viral on social media, the chopper was making a landing attempt at an unidentified location and suddenly it seemed to wobble, lose balance and then crashed with a loud sound in a cloud of dust on an open ground.
The pilot of the chopper managed to jump off the illfated chopper and survived, but the white-and-blue hired rotary-winger was badly damaged in the crash. Police and rescue teams rushed to the spot to probe the incident while the shaken Andhare, who was scheduled to fly by the same chopper, proceeded in a car for her scheduled election meetings in different parts of the district.
"We were busy on Thursday night, therefore, I did not want to disturbed my party workers and came to the helipad at 8.45 am. The take-off time was 9.00 am but there was no movement of the chopper till 9.10 am, so I called the coordinator who said the chopper will come in the next ten minutes.
At 9.20 am, we noticed helicopter approaching so we came out of the car and I saw the helicopter had taken three rounds in the area and slowly came down and crashed. We were also shocked after watching the incident. Fortunately, the pilot and his assistant were safe," said Andhare.
