india

Updated: Jul 10, 2019 12:10 IST

An employee of SpiceJet working in the belly of an aircraft parked at a bay in Kolkata airport died around 1:30 am on Wednesday after a hydraulic door accidentally closed on him.

According to personnel of ground staff working at the airport, the flaps of a door crushed Rohit Virendra Pandey.

An employee of the engineering and maintenance division of SpiceJet, Pandey, came to Kolkata from Mumbai and used to live in the city with his aunt.

“Rohit Pandey was doing maintenance work in the right hand main landing gear wheel well area of a Q400 aircraft which was parked at bay number 32 at Kolkata airport. Inadvertently, the main landing gear hydraulic door closed and he got stuck in between the hydraulic door flaps. The hydraulic doors were broken to rescue Pandey but he was declared dead,” said a statement from SpiceJet. The Q400 is a turboprop aircraft.

“The body has been handed over to the police,” airport director Kaushik Bhattacharya said.

The body has been sent for post mortem by officers of the airport police station.

According to ground handling employees at the airport, a driver of a vehicle working in the area saw Pandey standing and working with his head stuck between the flaps. The aircraft was parked at an open bay.

The driver alerted others about the incident.

“We have spent nearly two decades at this airport. We have never heard about such a freak accident here,” said an employee of an agency not authorised to speak to the media.

Airport employees said Pandey was in his twenties. His mother lives in Mumbai.