Devendra Fadnavis escapes chopper crash unscathed- here's a list of politicians who didn't

Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday had a providential escape when his copter crash-landed. But many other leading Indian politicians have not been as lucky and got killed in air tragedies in the past few decades. [caption id=“attachment_3479317” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  File Image of Devendra Fadnavis. PTI[/caption] Fadnavis, 46, three officials, a pilot and co-pilot managed to emerge virtually unscathed after their US-made Sikorsky helicopter crash-landed from a height of almost 80 feet, or a ten-storied building, at a helipad in Nilanga, Latur district, on Thursday afternoon. Some other politicians weren’t so lucky.

• Among possibly the earliest Indian politicians to be killed in a plane crash tragedy was the late revolutionary leader, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, on 18 August, 1945, in what is modern Taiwan.
• Almost 37 years ago, firebrand Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of the late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and younger brother of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, was killed when a small aircraft he was piloting crashed at the Safdarjung Airport in New Delhi on 23 June, 1980.
• Former Union Minister and senior Congress leader Madhavrao Scindia was killed when his Cessna aircraft crashed on 30 September, 2001, while he was flying to Kanpur for an election rally.
• Former Lok Sabha Speaker and Telugu Desam Party leader GMC Balayogi was killed in a chopper crash on 3 March, 2002 in Andhra Pradesh.
• Senior DMK leader and former Minister of State for Defence NVN Somu was killed in a chopper crash in Tamil Nadu on 14 November, 1997.
• Then Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu was killed in a chopper crash on 30 April, 2011.
• Then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy was killed in a chopper crash on 2 September, 2009.

However, there have been others as lucky as Fadnavis and managed to survive aircraft tragedies in the past. They included former Prime Minister Morarji Desai, who escaped unhurt when his special aircraft crashed in Assam in November 1977. Senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel, and former union ministers Prithviraj Chavan and Kumari Selja escaped miraculously from a chopper crash in Gujarat in 2004. In 2007, then Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and his cabinet colleague PS Bajwa survived after their chopper got entangled in overhead electrical cables in Gurdaspur.