A female trainee pilot of a private aviation training institute was killed when her aircraft crashed near Thungathurthy village of Peddavoora mandal in Nalgonda district, about 135kms from here, at around 11 a.m. on Saturday.
The victim was identified as Maheema Gajaraj, 29, of Ayanavaram in Chennai. She was training with Hyderabad-based Flytech Aviation Academy.
According to District Superintendent of Police Rema Rajeshwari, the trainee pilot took off her Cessna 152 aeroplane at around 10.30 a.m. from the Academy’s operations institute located on the right bank side of Nagarjunasagar reservoir, bordering Nalgonda, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh.
Preliminary reports and eyewitness accounts, she said, showed that the two-seater aircraft which she was riding alone, crashed in the barren lands near Thungathurthy village at around 10.50 a.m. The reasons for the crash are not known yet.
Eyewitnesses, such as Nageswara Rao and Vanguri Kannaiah of Ramannagudem Thanda in the mandal, speaking to media persons, said the carrier had lost its control in the air and spun to the ground.
“It looked like the aircraft lost control after hitting something in the air, may be the high electrical lines of the 133kv transmission tower nearby. The parts fell all around the place and made a sound of an explosion,” they said.
Other locals initially believed that there were two persons in the accident because the damaged aircraft showed two seats and the victim’s remains were beyond recognition.
Ms. Rajeshwari said two simultaneous investigations, one by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the other led by the divisional Miryalaguda police, will be conducted to uncover the truth behind the crash.
Flytech Aviation Academy which has its corporate office in Hyderabad did not respond to phone calls and text messages about the incident.
