Bangalore: Four Killed as Joy Alukkas' Private Plane Crashes
IANS
Bangalore, Sep 9: Four people on board a private small aircraft were killed when it crashed on the outskirts of Bangalore soon after taking off from the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) airport on way to Kottayam in Kerala on Saturday afternoon. The dead included the pilot of the Pilactus 68 aircraft.
The wreckage of the six-seat private aircraft belonging to Joy Alukka’s Group of Kerela which crashed into the Gowdanapalya Lake near Padmanabanagar in Bangalore on Saturday. (Pic K. Murali Kumar / The Hindu)
Deputy commissioner of police Alok Kumar said the four-seater aircraft belonged to Alukka Jewellers. The Kerala-based jewellers run a chain of jewellery shops in Bangalore and other places in southern states.
Kumar said the four victims had been identified as K Shamnugham of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, Mohammed Basheer of Chennai, Sunil Joseph of Kottayam and Santosh Singh of Bihar.
He said the aircraft took off from the HAL airport at 3.14 pm and crashed into a tank at Gowdanapalya, about 15 km from the city.
Airport sources said the pilot of the mini-aircraft had told the air traffic control room that he was returning as the plane had developed a problem. There was no contact afterwards.
Dubai report from Khaleej Times
Dubai: The owner of the Dubai-based Alukkas jewellery chain, Joy Alukkas, has expressed shock over the death of four of his company’s employees in an air crash in Bangalore on Saturday.
The helicopter Pilactus-68 crashed into a lake in the Gowdanapalaya area on the outskirts of Bangalore immediately after take-off.
Incidentally, Alukkas was scheduled to board the same chopper in Cochin to fly to Trivandrum.
He had bought the Italian-made aircraft six months ago for private use. “I was waiting at the Cochin International Airport for boarding the aircraft to go to Trivandrum to visit my outlet there. The flight was scheduled at 5.30pm IST. When the aircraft didn’t arrive, I called up my Bangalore office and was shocked to hear that it had crashed,” Alukkas told Khaleej Times in a telephonic conversation.
“It’s sad to hear that four of my employees (all based in Cochin) have lost their lives. The aircraft was fully insured and compensation will be given to the families of the deceased,” he said.
Representatives of Joy Alukkas Group in Dubai named the deceased as Sunil Joseph, Santhosh Kumar, K. Shanmugam and Mohammed Basheer.