CBI blames pilots for YSR's chopper crash

Hyderabad, July 3 : Human error, more specifically wrong judgement by the pilots, led to the fatal crash of former Andhra Pradesh chief minister YS Rajashekhar Reddy's helicopter in September last year, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has concluded after a probe.The CBI, which submitted its report to the Central and Andhra Pradesh governments on Friday, has ruled out any sabotage or conspiracy angle to the accident.YSR, as the chief minister was popularly known, died in the chopper crash in the state's dense Nalla Malla forests on September 2, 2009. Two state government officials and both the pilots also died in the accident.The CBI, in its report, said that the pilots were late in realizing that the aircraft was losing altitude and they raised an alarm just 18 seconds before the crash."The chopper had started losing altitude and even disappeared from the radar screens of the Air Traffic Control at 9:23:30 hours. By the time the pilots realized what was happening, it was too late," the report states.A detailed study of the Bell-430 VT APG chopper's cockpit voice recorder (CVR) by the CBI led to these findings.The last recorded words on the CVR were: "Go around go around action"."He (YSR's son Jagan) said some prominent people had reasons to eliminate his father. This allegation was looked into and it was found that neither sabotage nor conspiracy was behind the crash. It was an accident which could have been avoided. None other than the pilots are responsible for the crash. They chose to go ahead with the flight despite adverse weather conditions," the CBI said in its report.
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