Kanpur: A major accident was narrowly avoided on Thursday morning when a private charter aircraft skidded off the runway at Mohammadabad airstrip in Farrukhabad, coming to a stop just before the boundary wall. All six people onboard, including four passengers and two pilots, escaped without injuries.
Officials said the twin-engine charter plane, operated by Jetserve Aviation, was preparing to take off for Bhopal around 11:15 a.m. Pilots Nasib Baman and Prateek Fernandes were in command at the time of the incident.
Among the passengers were Ajay Arora, Deputy Managing Director of Woodpecker Green Agri Nutripad Pvt Ltd, along with Sumit Sharma from SBI, Rakesh Tikku, Vice President (Operations), and Manish Pandey, Uttar Pradesh Project Head. The team had arrived in Farrukhabad a day earlier to inspect a proposed beer manufacturing unit at the Khimsepur industrial area and was scheduled to return on Thursday morning.
The mishap occurred during the aircraft’s take-off roll when it had covered about 400 metres of the runway before losing alignment and veering off course. It finally came to rest near the perimeter wall, with its nose slightly tilted downward.
Emergency teams, including SDM Sadar Rajnikant Pandey, CO Ajay Verma, and officers from Mohammadabad Police, reached the site promptly. A fire brigade was also deployed as a precaution.
Preliminary investigation suggests that low air pressure in one of the wheels may have caused the aircraft to skid. Mohammadabad Kotwali SHO Vinod Shukla confirmed that all passengers were safe and later left the site by car. The aircraft sustained minor damage, according to officials.
