Newly purchased Chopper carrying Mayawati develops snag

Lucknow, Sep 1 (UNI) The security of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati was endangered for a few seconds when a newly purchased government helicopter carrying her developed a technical snag immediately after take-off from Amausi airport here this afternoon.

The pilot had to immediately return to the airport and the CM later flew to her destination, the eastern parts of the state, in another helicopter.

Ms Mayawati accompanied by Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh, who himself is a pilot, and wing commander R N Sengupta, was going for an aerial survey of the flood-hit regions in the state when this happened.

Incidentally, the helicopter which developed snag was Bell-412, recently purchased by the state government, and it was on its second flight today. The first being on August 9, when it carried Ms Mayawati to Ramabai Ambedkar ground in Lucknow during the party convention of Bahujan Samaj Party.

The UP, Civil Aviation Department sources when contacted denied that there was any snag but admitted that the CM had to change chopper due to 'some operational reasons'. They, however, refused to divulge further on the operational reasons behind it.

Meanwhile, the Air Traffic Control (ATC) at the Amausi airport refused to give any details about the incident and asked the newspersons to contact state government officials in this regard.

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