A technician for Indian airline SpiceJet died in a freak accident in Kolkata on the morning of July 10, after accidentally getting trapped in a plane door.
Rohit Pandey was performing maintenance work on the aircraft at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, when a hydraulic door “inadvertently” closed and he got stuck between the door flaps, according to a SpiceJet spokesperson.
A doctor was called immediately after the incident was reported at about 1:45 a.m., said Kaushik Bhattacharya, director of the Kolkata airport. “The body could not be pulled out and the doors had to be cut by mechanics,” Bhattacharya added.
An Indian airline says a technician was killed when the flaps covering an aircraft’s main landing gear accidentally closed on him during maintenance work. https://t.co/BAY96vyw85
— The Associated Press (@AP) July 10, 2019
Pandey was declared dead shortly after the doors were broken.
The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), a federal regulatory body, has launched an investigation into the accident.
In a statement, SpiceJet said it was “extremely saddened” by the news and that “the entire SpiceJet family stands together in grief in this unfortunate incident.”
SpiceJet has a good safety record. AirlineRatings.com, which evaluates airline safety worldwide, gave SpiceJet a rating of 7/7, citing its compliance with international safety parameters and fatality-free record
Body Falls Off Airplane, Lands in London Garden
In another airplane related incident last week, a Kenya Airways plane landed at Heathrow Airport and dropped a body into a garden in London.
According to The Star in Kenya, the Metropolitan Police in London on July 1 said it informed Kenya Airways that the body fell from the landing gear before the flight landed.
The paper noted that it was suggested the man was a stowaway hidden in the undercarriage of the aircraft.
Police found a bag containing food and clothing at the rear of the left landing gear.
Kenya Airways confirmed the incident to local media.
“On Sunday, June 30, a body of a yet to be identified male stowaway landed in a garden in the Borough of Lambeth, South London, suggesting the Stowaway was hidden in the undercarriage of the aircraft,” the statement from the airline said, reported the Tuko news website.
The body of a Kenyan Man has fallen into the BACK GARDEN of a LONDON home.
Metropolitan police were called by the home owner and on investigations it was found to have fallen from the undercarriage of Kenya Airways flight 100 from NAIROBI to LONDON. pic.twitter.com/ZvXGWANSrb— Rene_the Red (@Reindopree) July 1, 2019
The owner of the garden immediately called the authorities after the body was discovered.
It’s not clear if the man died while in the undercarriage or was killed by the fall.
According to the Star, police in the United Kingdom are in contact with Kenyan authorities to identify the person. No damage was done to the aircraft, and it was cleared for operation.
Reason not to live under a flight path
The body of a suspected stowaway fell from a plane shortly before it landed at #Heathrow Airport.
The man’s body landed in a garden in Clapham, south London at 3.41pm on Sunday, https://t.co/aWuUo2ft8t
— Daniel Moon (@dmoonuk) July 1, 2019
A statement from Scotland Yard told the Daily Mirror: “A post-mortem examination will be carried out in due course. Police are working to establish the man’s identity.”
“A crime scene was put in place but has since been closed,” the agency said. “The death is not being treated as suspicious. Enquiries are underway to establish the full circumstances. At this point, police believe the man was a stowaway and had fallen from the landing gear of an inbound Kenya Airways flight to Heathrow Airport.”
A flight from Nairobi to London takes nearly nine hours.
The CNN Wire and Epoch Times reporter Jack Phillips contributed to this report.
