Mumbai: A Pawan Hans helicopter with two pilots onboard crashed into the Arabian Sea shortly after taking off from an ONGC installation in the Mumbai high field this evening, defence sources said.
The pilots are missing and Coast Guard and ONGC have pressed their vessels into service to locate them.
Searh and Rescue Operation is being led by the Coast Guard which has deployed an INS Mumbai destroyer in the operation.
Spokesperson of Ministery of Defence Sitanshu Kar tweeted with a picture of an INS Mumbai vessel, “ File Pic of INS Mumbai deployed 4 SAR ops in the wake of the crash of a Pawan Hans Heptr near Bombay High at 7.25 pm.”
The Medivac chopper was on its last sortie of the day from a platform on the Mumbai High south oil and gas field about 160 KM off the coast.
"We don't know the reason for that," ONGC Director Offshore T K Sengupta told PTI.
The chopper was not on any crew duty and so there were no passengers on board.
"The chopper was on a standby duty and had taken off as part of its last sortie," he said, adding the reasons for the crash are not yet known.
"The pilots on the board are still missing. We don't know their whereabouts," Sengupta said.
No oil and gas installation was damaged in the accident.
Pawan Hans Limited is a public sector company which provides helicopter service to ONGC and other state governments in India. The company is based in New Delhi but operates out of the Juhu Aerodrome in Vile Parle (West), Mumbai.
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