‘Dy Commandant Bhagwati Prasad Bhatt was a calm person’

Gave his all out in saving lives in the Uttarakhand flood in 2013, Deputy Commandant  Bhagwati Prasad Bhatt (38), the pilot of the Border Security Force’s Beech Super King B-200 aircraft with VT-BSA registration, has left behind his two-months-old daughter and a 28-year-old wife after the plane crashed on early Tuesday morning near the Delhi airport.

A senior official in the BSF said the pilot diverted the aircraft from populated areas to prevent any civilian deaths as a result the plane hit a tree and crashed.

According to the sources in the department, Bhatt was an experienced pilot and had commanded this aircraft for over 200 hours. The plane, a twin engine turboprop, took off at 9.45 am for Ranchi and went down moments later as the pilot was unable to gain altitude. He tried to fly back to the airport for an emergency landing but crashed 50 metres short of the runway.

In November, Bhatt and his wife Swati Karnwal Bhatt were blessed with a baby girl. He was a very calm person who always used to handle things with patience. He used to share his experiences with co-pilots during the flying hours, says one of the officials close to him, requesting anonymity. He further said that Bhatt’s WhatsApp status also reads : “Patience Pays”.

Bhatt who hails from Uttarakhand and was currently residing in South Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar area, had rescued more than hundreds of lives during  the Uttarakhand flood.

According to sources, as Bhatt had 200 hours of flying commanding the same aircraft, he immediately got to know about the technical snag in the aircraft soon after he started the engine. “Despite informing the concerned authorities, the BSF ground crew asked him to go ahead with his flight and the plane hit a tree and crashed through the boundary wall of the airport and landed in a sewage treatment plant, bursting into flames,” the source added.

It is important to mention that the aircraft — Beech Super King, that was commissioned in 1995, was one of the two B 200 of the BSF. Another aircraft was brought in 2011. One B-200 aircraft crashed in 1992 and another in 2011 in Jharkhand. 

Sources said the aircraft was repaired and refurbished six months ago and it had 30 hours of flying time left before it was to go for routine servicing. “The aircraft was on a sortie with a dual purpose — to repair an Mi-17 aircraft and also to give flying practice to the pilots,” he added.