Two pilots of private airline company Deccan Aviation were arrested and their helicopter detained by the police after the chopper made an unscheduled landing close to the Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The Prime Minister was taking off after addressing an election rally in this Himachal Pradesh town. The incident that took place around 1.15 pm, took the elite Special Protection Group (SPG) protecting the prime minister, completely off-guard along with the state police and administration.

No flying is allowed as per the security drill of the prime minister at least 20 minutes after his helicopters leave. 

The detained helicopter was engaged by the ruling Congress in the state for senior party leader and Himachal Pradesh in-charge R K Dhawan. The pilots brought the private helicopter to the same helipad where the prime minister's copters were ready to leave. They had come to pick up Dhawan to take him to Shimla. Both pilots of the copter, Captain M S Sehgal and A Mehta, were arrested immediately after they landed. Their chopper was also detained. The arrests were confirmed by Director General of police Ashwini Kumar and Bilaspur district police chief Balbir Thakur. As the helicopter was detained, Dhawan left for Shimla by road.

“The pilots are being interrogated. Our investigations are in progress on how the private helicopter breached the security of the prime minister,” Thakur said after the incident.

The pilots had not given any advance information to the air traffic control (ATC) in Chandigarh or Shimla about their landing the chopper in Bilaspur.

The Prime Minister had arrived in his IAF helicopter from Chandigarh where he had earlier reached by an aircraft.

Clarification

However, Deccan Aviation has clarified that it had obtained prior permission and was cleared by the ATC and Air Defence to land its helicopter at a helipad at Bilaspur when the PM’s chopper was about to take off, DHNS adds from Bangalore. Deccan Aviation stated that it has not breached the PM’s security as necessary clearance was obtained and that its pilots were not provided any information about the PM’s movement. “Steps should be initiated to avoid similar incidents,” the company said.