Mumbai: Two students and one staffer suffered burn injuries after a hydrogen balloon exploded during an aerospace experiment on Friday afternoon, at Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay). They were rushed to the IIT hospital for first aid and subsequently taken to the National Burns Centre, Airoli for further treatment.
Tushar Jadhav, a part-time staffer at the mechanical department of IIT Bombay, and two interns, Prashant Singh and Rajat Kumar, were filling hydrogen in balloons for an experiment when the accident occurred.
A spokesperson of IIT Bombay, Falguni Banerjee Naha, said the students had suffered minor burn injuries. Naha said, “The three people were administered first aid at IIT hospital and later sent to the National Burns Centre at Airoli for further treatment. All three are fine and under observation but will be discharged soon.
Jadhav is a former dual degree student of the Aerospace Engineering department. He had set up a firm, Manastu Space, incubated at the Society for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (SINE) in IIT Bombay. Singh and Kumar had been hired as interns by Jadhav for his project and were not IIT students, the spokesperson clarified.
