Khattar gets Rs 42-crore aircraft

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, January 2

Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has acquired new wings to fly on in a year when the state goes to the polls.

The Haryana Civil Aviation Department has inducted a nine-seater US-based Textron Aviation, formerly Beech Craft, plane on New Year bought at a total cost of Rs 42 crore.

This latest acquisition of the Haryana Government is also the first aircraft in India with a “fusion cockpit”, operating on touch-screen and is an upgraded version of the existing technology.

Ready to fly in record time of one month against the routine two months required to get the various clearances, the plane also has a Flight Data Recorder which has recently been made mandatory by the Director General of Civil Aviation.

The special safety features also include ADSB compliance which means that tracking the aircraft in possible for up 1,200 km and, additionally, the plane is equipped with an anti-collision device as well. Sources said that the Department has also arranged two pilots, senior pilot Capt Bindu Sethi, on deputation from the BSF for three years, and Capt Dinesh Bansal to fly the plane which landed in Delhi on November 30 last year.

Presently, the plane is parked at the Chandigarh Airport and is likely to be first used by the Chief Minister on January 18 for his trip to Gujarat to participate in the Vibrant Gujarat summit and the Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas.

Sources said that the new purchase was necessitated after the 10-seater plane owned by the department crashed at Chandigarh Airport on March 27, 2014. The then Haryana Governor, Jagannath Pahadia, and nine others including two crew members had a narrow escape when the state government aircraft, a Beech Craft B200, aborted take-off after its control system got jammed.

While the state government has received Rs 14 crore from the insurance company for the plane, the government has invited bids to dispose of the scrap of the crashed plane, a 10-seater, which is lying parked at the Air Force station in Chandigarh.