“It was a tightrope walk,” Lieutenant Commander Abhijeet Garud recalls his daredevil landing, a ‘light on the wheels’ manoeuvre in military parlance, on the terrace of a house on August 17 to rescue a chair-bound woman, in her 80s, from the flood hit Aluva-Chalakudy stretch.
IN 566, the naval Sea King helicopter of the Southern Naval Command-based Flaming Arrows squadron which he flies, was over the area for the second day to airdrop Gemini boats and eight divers for rescue operations besides airlift people marooned on roof-tops and terraces and drop. “We were about eight km from the Naval Base as the crow flies,” he narrated the event, while having a quick snack between relief sorties on Sunday afternoon.
Absolute mayhem
“We had dropped the Gemini and food packets on the highway. There was absolute mayhem, with the floods running riot. There was not a single building where you would overfly and people were not on top. Now, you have to pick up some and leave some others, as you can only pick up so much.
“Then there was this old house outside which some old women were standing. I said, ‘Let’s pick them up’. I hovered and picked up about 20-25 people. I was at hover and the winch operations were on. That was then I saw an old lady being carried by a few men on a chair. She couldn’t get into the rescue basket [to be winched up]. She couldn’t even move. So, the only way was to lower the height [of the aircraft] further.
“The crew decided that all four sides were clear and slowly we started coming down. Now, my field of view is very limited. It was like being led blindfolded and you take each step gingerly. The crew, which knows the behaviour of the chopper, said there was space and I took the call to land. We are trained for such operations,” says Lt Cdr Garud, smiling, with full faith in his crew comprising co-pilot Lt Cdr Rajneesh, navigator Lt Satyarth, winch operator Ajit and free diver Rajan.
Precarious position
But it was a precarious position where the wheels of the medium-lift helicopter barely touch the terrace top so that the copter weight is not passed on to the terrace floor. “If you transfer the weight fully down, the building might give way. If you do this manoeuvre for a long time, you could get into a condition called ‘ground resonance’, which would disintegrate the helicopter in a matter of minutes. So, I was maintaining a fine balance,” he explains.
A video of his daredevil landing, taken by a local, was viral on social media.
On that sortie, Lt Cdr Garud and his crew shipped about 25 stranded people to safety. “There were two children, too. Water was at the level of the first floor and despite the floor being slippery, these men, their feet bare, brought the ailing woman and helped her onto the helicopter,” he recalls.
During their sorties in the days that followed, the team rescued several stranded people, including three pregnant women.
During the missions, he came across situations where people were frightened to be winched up or unaware of the precautions to be taken when a helicopter hovers over them.
“At a spot, we wanted to go down to pick up a few people, but there were some on a canoe nearby which would have toppled in the strong winds if we had done so,” he said.
On Sunday, he flew relief sorties to Thiruvalla and North Paravur.
