Security scare: Yogi Adityanath chopper lands on field, not helipad

LUCKNOW: In a security scare for chief minister Yogi Adityanath, his helicopter was forced to land on an open field after his pilot refused touchdown on the helipad in Kasganj in western UP on Tuesday morning.


Sources said the pilot raised objection to the presence of “too many trees” around the helipad that had been cleared for the CM’s Tuesday visit and instead chose to land on a field, 100m from the helipad. The government has suspended the executive engineer, junior engineer and assistant engineer of PWD for negligence.

Sources in the Kasganj administration were surprised by the pilot’s decision and said the chopper could have easily been diverted to the helipad in police lines. “The helipad has been used many times. It was checked prior to CM’s visit and even NSG visited it on Monday night. Nobody raised concerns then. However, the pilot has the final word and if he was not satisfied, nobody else has a say,” an official said. While sources in the CM office denied there was a threat to the CM’s life as this was “not an emergency landing”, the decision to land the chopper in an unsecured area posed a security nightmare for the administration and local police.

Sources said several villagers reached the spot to catch a glimpse of the CM. The field where the chopper landed was not fenced or adequate security personnel present to sanitize the area. As a result, the CM had to be whisked away within seconds to ensure that surging crowds did not have access to the CM.

Yogi was going to Kasganj to review the situation after the Sunday storm caused massive damage in the area. Principal secretary (information) Awanish Awasthi said there had been no change in the CM’s plan because of the landing and he managed to attend all meetings and programmes, as scheduled.