The Mangalore City Police Commissioner, Seemanth Kumar Singh, has said that the first police team reached the air crash site at 6.30 a.m., about 28 minutes after the control room got the information about the accident.
Addressing a press conference here on Monday, where he pieced together the sequence of events that followed the Saturday's plane crash at Kenjar from the police perspective, he said that a person called Mohammed Sameer told the City Police Control Room (100) over telephone at 6.02 a.m. about the crash.
This was the first intimation and the call was received by head constable Chandra.
Verification
To ensure that this was not a crank call, the control room officials called Mr. Sameer back on his mobile phone at 6.04 a.m. for confirmation.
At 6.07 a.m., the Bajpe police was alerted about the accident.
At 6.10 a.m. Mr. Singh personally called Mr. Sameer for re-confirmation. And, the first police team from Bajpe station, comprising assistant sub-inspector of police Sudhakar and head constable Arun, reached the spot by a motorcycle at 6.30 a.m..
Residents of the nearby villages had already arrived at the spot, when the first team of police reached there and rescue operations had started.
According to sub-inspector Pramod Kumar of the Bajpe station, a Rossenbauer fire truck belonging to the Airports Authority of India had already reached the site when the first police team went there and it was spraying the blazing wreck with foam and water, he said.
Mr. Singh said that a second fire truck was shooting fire extinguishing material from the edge of the cliff at the end of the airport, into the valley.
According to the records with the District Fire and Emergency Services, their first fire engine left the Pandeshwar Fire Station at 6.24 a.m. and reached the disaster spot about 20 minutes later, he said.
