A,E,I,O,U Kings 4 U

The search for the missing helicopter, in which the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy was travelling, is focussed around roughly 300 square kilometres of Nallamala forest in Kurnool and Prakasam districts, a daunting task indeed for police teams that have fanned out into thick forest area, once a Maoist stronghold.

Large contingents of Grey Hounds, the elite anti-naxalite commando force have been rushed to Kurnool and Prakasam districts for search and rescue operation. The commandos are the most competent for the job as they are well-versed with the terrain of the forest. The main problem is the inclement weather which hampers the progress of the commando units.

The forest is spread over nearly 6,000 square kilometres and traverses through Mahabubnagar, Kurnool and Prakasam districts, which incidentally are on the flight path of the Bell-430 helicopter carrying Dr. Reddy. The search teams have narrowed down the area depending on the expectation that after being airborne for one hour, the chopper would have crossed or would have been in the vicinity of Atmakur town in Kurnool district.

What has surprised the officials is the complete radio silence from the Bell-430. Every helicopter, sources in aviation industry say, is equipped with High Frequency (HF) and Very High Frequency (VHF) sets. While HF is used for long range communication, the VHF is used for communication within 150 km. However, in the event of a crash these sets might not function if the external antennae are destroyed under the impact.

The other puzzling fact in the chopper incident is that every helicopter is expected to have an Emergency Locating Transmitter (ELT) fitted to the aircraft body, while the pilot is expected to carry a Personal Recovery Beacon (PRB). The ELT would start emitting distress signals in the event of a crash and the PRB, once activated, would start beaming the Global Positioning System (GPS) ‘latlong’ (latitude and longitude) details. This would have helped the authorities to pinpoint the location of the chopper, if it had crashed or had force-landed in an interior place.

However, no technical details are available, making it all the more difficult for the search and rescue teams, officials said.

M. Malleswara Rao adds:

The Bell-430 helicopter in which Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy used for his travel to Chittoor district, was virtually dusted off from a hangar at Begumpet airport, where it had been lying, and pressed into service on Wednesday.

It was exactly one year ago that the Andhra Pradesh Government acquired a brand new AgustaWestland AW-139 helicopter from the company’s main facility in Italy for a sum of Rs 58 crore. The Bell helicopter was transferred to the AP Aviation Corporation constituted recently to undertake commercial operations and ever since confined to the hangar.

Dr. Reddy had no other option other than using the Bell 430 since the AgustaWestland helicopter was recently sent for overhaul after being in operation for one full year. The Bell-430 purchased from the US for Rs 26 crore and a six-seater, was found to be inadequate to meet the requirements as it lacked night-landing facility and often required repairs and overhaul.

On Wednesday, it was flown by a new pilot in place of the Chief Minister’s regular pilot who was drawn from Indian Air Force.

The AgustaWestland was brought to New Delhi first by a Russian cargo aircraft in August last year and flown to Hyderabad on September 15 after trials.

The team headed by Finance Minister K. Rosaiah that was monitoring the search and rescue operations said the AgustaWestland was a sturdy aircraft as it had two engines. It can seat 14 persons and has "crashworthy crew and passenger seats, airframe and fuel system". It was preferred by VIPs all over the globe for its safety standards and for its "fail-safe" design, system redundancy, damage tolerance and engine burst containment system.