Bhubaneswar, Dec. 22: The difference of one degree latitude, the result of a clerical error, sent the state government officials into a tizzy as the helicopter carrying chief minister Naveen Patnaik from Jeypore, 527km from here, to Kotpad in the Maoist-dominated Koraput district failed to make a timely landing.

The 45-minute delay in landing, during which the officials either in Koraput or in Bhubaneswar, had no clue about the chopper's position, cost Koraput's executive engineer, works, Biranchi Mohanty, dear. He has been placed under suspension immediately.

The pilot when he took off from Jeypore, a major commercial centre of Koraput, for Kotpad, a distance of 45km, at 12.45pm had been given a route chart by district officials that showed the location of Kotpad from Jeypore at 18 degrees latitude though the correct position was 19 degrees. This confused the pilot and the landing that should have taken place at 1.05pm was delayed by 45 minutes as the pilot kept hunting for the helipad's exact location. He had also lost aerial contact with the local officials for a brief period.

With the helicopter untraceable from the ground, the entire administration, which was otherwise busy giving final touches to the chief minister's programme at Kotpad where he inaugurated a string of projects, became immensely tense.

As time passed by, police at Kotpad began to panic, as the area is a known Maoist stronghold. The cops kept making frantic calls to the state police headquarters and top officials of the district administration.

Superintendent of police, Koraput, Charan Singh Meena, heaved a sigh of relief when the chief minister landed at Kotpad. Naveen displayed no signs of anxiety and went about with his programme.

The police chief said that an inquiry into the incident had been ordered.

Once Naveen was back in Bhubaneswar, chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi had a meeting with officials and it was revealed that executive engineer's office had given wrong information about the geographical location. This led to the immediate suspension of the Biranchi Mohanty.

Mohanty told The Telegraph: "It was a clerical error. Instead of writing 19 degrees, our office gave Kotpad's location as 18 degrees latitude from Jeypore."

The chief minister's chopper was also in news when he went to Rourkela on December 11 to attend the inauguration of the Biju Patnaik rural hockey championship in Rourkela. His helicopter had to be pushed manually at the tarmac to make way for vice-president, Hamid Ansari's plane that landed after him.

During his visit to the district today, Naveen laid foundation stones of several projects.