Date:12/08/2003 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2003/08/12/stories/2003081206450100.htm

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23 ONGC men feared killed in helicopter crash

By Arunkumar Bhatt

Rescue workers carry the body of a person killed in a helicopter crash off Mumbai on Monday. — Reuters

MUMBAI Aug. 11. At least 25 persons, including 23 employees of the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, were feared killed in a helicopter crash into the Arabian Sea in the offshore Heera Panna Oilfield's Neelam area, about 30 nautical miles west of Mumbai at 12.15 p.m. on Monday.

There were 29 persons onboard when the Mesco-owned Russian MI 172 chartered by the ONGC took off from its onshore base at Juhu.

According to an ONGC source, the helicopter which was transiting from the oil platform Sagar Kiran to Sagar Jyoti was airborne for only three minutes.

Half the workers were shore bound after completing their 15-day stint on Sagar Kiran to be with their families while the rest had finished their shore-stay and were to be at their work places on Sagar Jyoti.

Rescue helicopters that rushed in soon after picked up two survivors, Mandley and Mhatre. Three bodies, identified as those of the pilot, Capt. Jaspal, the flight engineer Ravindran and an ONGC employee, C.S. Davle, were also found.

Soon after the tragedy, the ONGC onshore control room alerted the Coast Guard, the National Search and Rescue Agency, and the Indian Navy. The sea was choppy and the weather was rough in the area where the rescuers were required to search in a radius of five to ten miles, the Chief Staff Officer of Coast Guard Region West, DIG, S.R. Sharma, told The Hindu.

This is the worst mishap in Mumbai Offshore, as the area is popularly called, since the blowout in the early 1980s that had destroyed a rig and thousands of barrels of oil in the fire that raged for days.

A massive search and rescue effort involving a fleet of surface ships and about half-a-dozen aircraft has been launched.

While the Coast Guard launched a Dornier surveillance aircraft, having longer endurance, and diverted the Advanced Offshore Patrol Vessel, CGS Sarang, which also carries a helicopter onboard, and the Fast Patrol Vessel, CGS Amrit Kaur, the Navy dispatched a Sea King and a Chetak helicopter, besides three patrol vessels, INS Vibhuti, INS Agray and INS Akshay. At least one helicopter of the Air Force also joined the search and rescue.

Two helicopters have been sent in by the ONGC besides its four offshore supply vessels. DIG Sharma said that CGS Sarang was acting as "on sea command platform" coordinating the surface search while the Dornier that could stay airborne for about five hours was directing the choppers.