Kolkata, July 10: In a tragic incident, Rohit Pandey, a technician of budget carrier SpiceJet died after being trapped in the main landing gear door of the aircraft. According to a tweet by ANI, the SpiceJet technician lost his life while working on an aircraft at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata. The fatal incident took place around 1 am on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday. The body of the technician was removed from landing gear with the help of Fire brigade.
The airline in statement said that it is extremely saddened to share that their technician Rohit Pandey passed away last night in an unfortunate incident at Kolkata airport. "Extremely saddened to share that our technician Rohit Pandey passed away last night in an unfortunate incident at Kolkata airport. He was doing maintenance work in right hand main landing gear wheel well area of a Q400 aircraft which was parked in Bay No. 32 at airport", the airline said.
SpiceJet said that inadvertently, the main landing gear hydraulic door closed & Pandey got stuck in between the hydraulic door flaps. The Hydraulic doors were broken to rescue Pandey but he was declared dead. "The entire SpiceJet family stands together in grief in this unfortunate incident", the statement added.
Earlier this month, aviation regulator DGCA has grounded 12 pilots and served show-cause notices to them after six cases of aircraft veering off runway or taxiway were reported in the last few months. Reports inform that SpiceJet, Air India Express and GoAir have been involved in three, two and one such incidents, respectively, in the past few days, prompting the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to take action against the 12 pilots.Mumbai Airport's Main Runway May Remain Shut Till July 4 as SpiceJet Plane Still Stuck, Flight Operations to be Affected.
The decision by DGCA came after the main runway at Mumbai airport remained shut after a SpiceJet plane from Jaipur veered off it when landing amid heavy rainfall on Monday night and got stuck in the adjacent grass area.
In the last month, a SpiceJet aircraft overshot the runway at Surat airport after landing. All passengers onboard the flight SG-3722, which flew from Bhopal, were reported to be safe. Going by the data recently presented by Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri in Parliament, SpiceJet had the highest number of passengers who were affected due to flight cancellations from January to May this year.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 10, 2019 09:12 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).