Anxious neighbours hope pilot of crashed chopper is alive

Eerie silence prevails in the neighbourhood of Rajeev Hoskote, the pilot of the ill-fated ‘Pawan Hans’ helicopter - the wreckage of which was found in Arunachal Pradesh on Monday. Rajeev is a resident of Ramanuja Road here.

Rajeev, working with the aviation company for the past four years, was flying with an IAS officer and two others, when the chopper went missing four days ago.

Following the incident, his anxious parents Manjunath and Vanishri waited till Friday, before leaving for Bengaluru. Manjunath, along with his friend M V Ravishankar, former chairman of Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited, has gone to Arunachal Pradesh, Natesh a neighbour of Rajeev told Deccan Herald.

Natesh said, the parents were informed about the missing chopper on August 4 itself. The officials, who were in constant touch with them (Rajeev’s parents), later informed them about establishing contact with the cellphone of Rajeev. The parents were relieved then.

When Rajeev landed the job four years ago, he had distributed sweets among the neighbours. A fortnight ago, Rajeev had returned to work after spending his holidays in Mysuru.

When this newspaper tried to contact Manjunath, his friend Ravishankar who picked the call on the former’s cellphone, said, “For now, it is only known that the wreckage of the helicopter has been found. There is no official word yet on the occupants.”

When some mediapersons went near the house of Rajeev, the neighbours shooed them away on Monday. For the love of Rajeev and with the hope that he would be alive, the irate neighbours were not ready to accept that Rajeev may have died, as reported in a section of the electronic media.