Mamata sustains knee, hip injuries after chopper makes emergency landing at Sevoke airbase West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a wheelchair leaves after being treated at SSKM hospital, in Calcutta. PTI picture

At SSKM Hospital, Didi undergoes tests, including MRI, which has revealed ligament injuries in the hip with fluid collection in the left knee joint

  West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in a wheelchair leaves after being treated at SSKM hospital, in Calcutta. PTI picture

Sougata Mukhopadhyay, TT, Calcutta, 27.06.23 Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee sustained injuries on her left knee and hip joints on account of a rough emergency landing that her chopper, faced with inclement weather conditions, had to make at the Sevoke airbase in Darjeeling district on Tuesday afternoon.

The extent of ligament damage on her left limb and hip joint was identified during medical examinations which took place at the SSKM Hospital in Calcutta later in the day.

“She (the chief minister) has suffered some injuries due to the sudden emergency landing. Now she is being examined at SSKM Hospital for medical management of her condition. Senior doctors are attending the chief minister and investigations, including MRI, have been done which revealed ligament injury with fluid collection in the left knee joint with marks of ligament injury in the left hip joint. Respective treatment of the injuries has already started. She was advised to get admitted but she told that she will continue treatment at home,” a medical bulletin from the hospital, read out by Dr Monimoy Bandyopadhyay, Director, SSKM, stated.

Banerjee, who limped her way inside the Woodburn Block of the hospital at around 5.10 pm where she reached directly from the airport, left for her Kalighat residence around 8.30 pm after getting her medical examinations done. She was seen taken in and out of the MRI examination room on a wheelchair where she spent more than an hour.

Hospital sources confirmed that Banerjee’s injuries would be managed by limb support and therapy. A follow up of her condition would be done by the hospital on Wednesday based on which the further course of treatment would be decided.

Earlier, Banerjee’s chopper made a forced detour from its flight path and made an emergency landing at the Sevoke airbase after the aircraft met with inclement weather on its way to the Bagdogra airport. The chief minister, reportedly, sustained injuries at the time of disembarking from the chopper under precarious conditions at the airbase which did not have necessary landing arrangements since there was no prior information of the helicopter coming in.

Banerjee’s helicopter took off from the makeshift helipad at the Kranti Maidan in Jalpaiguri around 12.50 pm following the Trinamul Congress supremo’s panchayat poll campaign in that area. Banerjee’s 13-minute flight from Jalpaiguri was aiming to reach the Bagdogra airport from where she was supposed to take her return flight to Calcutta.

Although it was drizzling when the chopper took off from Jalpaiguri, the weather quickly turned extremely dangerous over the Baikunthapur forest area some 10 minutes into the flight with torrential rains lashing the aircraft from thick dark clouds that were packed in all three corners in the direction in which the helicopter was headed, it was learnt.

Assessing that the risk was too high to continue flying towards Bagdogra, the pilot swerved the chopper in the only direction which looked relatively clear, which was towards the hills in the North. A couple of minutes later the flyers realized they were over the Sevoke airbase at the Himalayan foothills and made an emergency landing. “There wasn’t time to even secure the mandatory landing permission from the Air Force,” a co-flier confirmed.

Senior officers of the armed forces quickly rushed to the helipad and escorted the chief minister and her co-fliers to safety, it was learnt. Banerjee and her team of co-fliers spent some time at the airbase waiting for the weather to clear up before heading to Bagdogra airport once again to catch her special return flight to Calcutta.

Banerjee reached Calcutta around 4.30 pm and headed straight for the SSKM Hospital. About 40 minutes later, the chief minister’s convoy reached the Woodburn Block of the hospital where, besides senior authorities of the hospital, Biman Banerjee, Speaker of the state Legislative Assembly, BP Gopalika, state home secretary, Narayan Swarup Nigam, health secretary and Vineet Goyal, Police Commissioner of Calcutta were among those present and waiting.

Banerjee refused the wheelchair that was kept ready but took the support of a senior doctor to walk to the ward. A visible discomfiture writ large on the chief minister’s face even as she got down from the car and was seen limping on her left foot.

Meanwhile, Bengal governor CV Ananda Bose reportedly called up Banerjee enquiring about her health and later put out a tweet expressing his relief about the chief minister’s safety following the emergency landing of her chopper.

This isn’t the first time that Banerjee has had to encounter mid-air scare. Major air turbulence hit her aircraft during her return from a political campaign in Uttar Pradesh last year. The plane also experienced a sharp loss in altitude on account of a deep air pocket the plane ran into.