NEW DELHI: Members of Parliament from Arunachal Pradesh and the State Congress has requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to institute a CBI inquiry into the chopper crash of April 30 earlier this year which resulted in the death of state Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu along with four others.
The party in a joint letter signed by its Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha MPs along with the State Pradesh Congress Committee President Nabam Tukr, submitted to the Prime Minister on October 7, has pointed out that despite the directive from the Central Government that only twin engine helicopters could be used for ferrying the VIP/VVIPs, the norm was flouted and queried under what circumstances was it done as this was a single engine chopper.Preliminary inquiry report, submitted by (Ret) Chief Air Marshal P S Ahluwalia, says that the chopper chose to fly the unsafe shorter air route by flying over Sela Pass to reach Itanagar instead of the conventional longer route via Guwahati.
Secondly, why was there no data flight recorder or cockpit voice recorder in the ill-fated helicopter, the letter said.
Under these circumstances only a CBI inquiry could bring out the entire truth behind the chopper crash, the letter added. UNI
