Pune: In second helicopter tragedy of its kind in Pune, three persons including two pilots, died when a chopper crashed in Bavdhan Khurd area of Pune city in Maharashtra around 7 am. The other person killed in the tragedy was an engineer. 

Sunil Tatkare, president of NCP Ajit Pawar group, was supposed to take same chopper from Mumbai to his native place Raigad.

The chopper crashed in the hilly area of Bavdhan, apparently due to misty conditions.

The helipad is located close to Oxford Golf Course in Bavdhan area.

PMC Fire Brigade which was alerted reached the spot only to find the chopper disintegrated into pieces and up in flames. ''By the time we reached the spot, there were only remains of the chopper and the bodies. Huge flames were emanating from the crash site. We removed three bodies from the site and handed over to the police,'' said PMC Fire Brigade chief Devendra Potphode said.

The dead have been identiied as Paramjit Singh and G K Pillai, both pilots. The engineer has been identified as Pritam Bharadwaj.

Three people, including two pilots and an engineer, died after a helicopter crashed in Maharashtra's Pune district and caught fire on Wednesday morning. The incident took place around 6:45 am in hilly terrain in the Bavdhan area after the helicopter took off from a helipad located at a golf course in the vicinity.

The helicopter was carrying three people on board - two pilots, Paramjit Singh and G K Pillai, and one engineer, Pritam Bharadwaj.

“When we reached the spot, we saw that the chopper had crashed and all its parts had scattered. There was a smouldering fire. We were able to extract three casualties, and these were handed over to the police...Other information is yet to be ascertained,” chief fire officer, Devendra Prabhakar Potphode told ANI.

The helicopter belonged to Heritage Aviation. It was apparently on political duty, ferrying politicians from one place to another.

Mr Tatkare, a top leader of NCP, had flown to Beed area for party's rally by the same chopper on Tuesday. ''Today, the chopper was coming to pick me up and take me to my residence in Sutarwadi area of Raigad,'' he told reporters.

Last month as well, Pune had seen similar chopper but no casaulties.