TNI Bureau: The Airport Authority of India has issued a clarification on the RTI report on CM Naveen Patnaik’s flight to flood affected areas and confirmed that the latter did flew on August 31.

The AAI said that there was a miscommunication in the media (Read OTV/Odisha Reporter) about the flight details and timing.

? The clarification said that actual flying time was 19 minutes, but that excluded the warmup time, startup time at apron and taxi time to the runway and return to the apron after landing. The State Government added those time to make it 30 mins in total.

? It further added that CM Naveen Patnaik’s flight departed at 3:42 PM IST (10:12 UTC) from Bhubaneswar and landed back at Bhubaneswar at 4:01 PM IST (10:31 UTC).

? The media got confused between the UTC timing and IST and reported that the flight timing was in the morning and no VVIP flight departed from the Airport on that day.

? The AAI also clarified that CMs of the States are not in the list of VVIPs. VVIP means President, Vice President, Prime Minister and Foreign Heads of State/Govt. This is the reason why CM’s flight was not listed under the VVIP movement.

The Government has also added that the helicopter used by CM Naveen Patnaik is a high-quality, twin engine one. These helicopters take 5-6 minutes only to reach the severely flood affected areas in Coastal belt from Bhubaneswar.

The videos and photographs of CM’s aerial visit were released to the media on that day itself (August 31, 2020).

Undertook an aerial survey of flood affected areas. #OdishaFlood has waterlogged many districts, marooned many villages, agricultural crops, damaged houses, disrupted roads and other infrastructure. Expeditious steps are being taken to restore normal life in flood affected areas. pic.twitter.com/2o5tcDBiTO

— Naveen Patnaik (@Naveen_Odisha) August 31, 2020