ONGC chopper crashes into Arabian Sea, 4 dead

A brand new Pawan Hans’ Sikorsky chopper with 9 people on board crashed into the Arabian Sea, about 50 nautical miles from the Mumbai coast on Tuesday, killing four people — including three ONGC employees.

The helicopter, was about 4-5 minutes away from its destination – ONGC’s Sagar Kiran rig – when the incident took place, company officials with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The chopper went down around 1145 hrs, just 1 nautical mile away from Sagar Kiran, but managed to stay afloat with the help of the attached floaters, helping rescuers pull out all the nine, including two pilots, after ONGC and Navy/Coast Guard scrambled in one of the fastest rescue missions in the western offshore.