(From top) A part of the aircraft jutting out of the house. The damaged house. Smoke billows from the house after the plane crash. A car that got crushed. (Pictures: Vijayalakshmi and AP)

Hyderabad, March 3: The plane crash in the vicinity of the old airport at Begumpet has again rekindled the debate on the wisdom of air displays in the skies above densely populated areas.

Residents of New Bowenpally area, 3km from the Begumpet airport, said they had kept fingers crossed ever since they were told of an air display.

Thousands of people had gathered on the roads and on rooftops when the sky spectacle turned into a disaster, sending thick clouds of smoke into the air and sparking panic on the streets. “There was a loud explosion. Then we saw oil raining down and glass and steel pieces flying around,” said Rukmini Reddy, a teacher in a nearby school.

Local people said their fears had come true twice in the past 18 months. In September 2008, a Cessna plane of the Andhra Pradesh Flying Club had taken off from Begumpet and crashed near a bridge in the crowded locality of Sanathnagar, not very far from New Bowenpally. Both pilots of the Cessna had been killed but there were no casualties on the ground.

Today’s crash has claimed the two pilots of the navy Kiran Mark II plane as well as a civilian, who is as yet unidentified.

“We were glad that commercial flight operations have been shifted (to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport at Shamshabad). But we have been protesting against holding such air shows at the old airport because of these freak events,” said Purushottam Reddy, professor and member of the Save Hyderabad campaign who has spearheaded the battle against the airport within the city.

The Begumpet airport is no longer used for commercial flights, but continues to be used for military training and VIP takeoffs and landings.

Besides the loss of human life, another casualty of the crash has been the house into which the Kiran nose-dived, shaking it to the foundations.

The three-storied building, painted in green, was built by Rama Kumar Gowd, a retired government engineer, in 2006. Gowd and his two sons lived on the ground and first floors. The second floor was rented out to a family friend. The penthouse built atop was occupied by a business friend, also on rent.

Gowd told reporters in the evening that he had spent around Rs 46 lakh on constructing the building.

“Now I have to review the entire structure as the crash has shaken the foundations of the ground and the first floors and also the basement where we parked our cars,” he said.

Gowd’s son Ramesh said the crash had destroyed the three-room penthouse while the second floor, which had a two-bedroom apartment, has also suffered extensive damage.

“We will have to calculate our losses and hopefully we will soon rebuild our home,” said Gowd.

Vijayshree and her son Shyam Krishna, 16, who stayed in the second-floor apartment, were sitting in the balcony when the plane fell. Both received burn injuries and were admitted to the military hospital, where they were declared out of danger.

Shyam, a Class X student preparing for his annual exams that begin on Friday, said he had pulled his mother out of the debris.

The army and the city police have thrown a security cordon around 200 metres of the crash site and evacuated all residents because of the threat of a fire from the highly inflammable aviation fuel that had spilled all over.

The residents of the area initially felt a bomb had gone off. Satyanarayana, a local resident, said he saw the plane crash into a mobile phone tower on top of the building and then he heard a loud boom, after which the aircraft disintegrated and burst into flames. It took the fire tenders almost an hour to put out the blaze.