Aircraft landing on highway: NRI owner did not even have licence

mangaloretoday.com

Bhopal, Jan 02: It appears the aircraft landing on a busy highway in Betul in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday was not the only shocker. It has now emerged that its NRI owner, businessman Sam Verma, did not have the licence to fly the plane as well

According to a report published in a leading English daily, the industrialist’s Indian private pilot licence had expired in 2001 but that did not stop him from allegedly flying the plane for many times in the past. He did not even bother to inform the air traffic control, claimed the report.

 

The newspaper quotes DGCA’s deputy director (airworthiness) RB Soni who wrote in a letter to Madhya Pradesh’s principal secretary (aviation) on June 24, 2013, "Private pilot licence of Sam Verma was valid till October 12, 2001. He has been flying (Piper Navajo aircraft, VT-ERX) without valid licence... He (Verma) flies from Betul to Rewa, Satna and various other uncontrolled airfields. Air traffic control (ATC) Bhopal, Indore, Nagpur and regional executive director, Airports Authority of India, Mumbai have also been intimated in this regard. Nowadays he is flying the aircraft between uncontrolled airfields without concurrence/ intimation to ATC."

 

 

 

According to the report, Soni added in the letter that the aircraft then did not have a valid certificate of airworthiness (C of A) when Verma reportedly flew it.

Verma’s four-seater private plane had made an emergency landing on highway at Betul in Madhya Pradesh on Tuesday, blocking traffic on the busy highway for more than half an hour.

Police had to rush to the sport to divert the blocked traffic.

The place, supposed to land in the nearby tyre factory owned by the NRI, was forced by strong winds to make an emergency landing on the highway. However, it failed to take off after that.

The NRI, who alleged that construction of pillars near his factory by the highway authorities caused the diversion, had left his plane on the four-lane highway in protest.

Betul ASP Gitesh Garg said, "We will conduct an inquiry into the incident and take appropriate action."