Did You Know The Mulund Depot Had A Helipad?

I’ve mentioned before that Google Earth is fun. In fact, I’ve written an entire blogpost based on what I can see on the map, and I’ve even written a full fledged article based on similar observations. Defence experts too use Google Earth, along with other mapping software, for instance on the recent Galwan encounter and the bridge built across the river.

Now, one of my favourite features of Google Earth is the Timeline View. It lets you see a certain part of the map over a period of time. Most parts of Mumbai can see be seen from the year 2000, while other cities came in slightly later. Many cities in the United States can be seen from the 1970s as well.

Now, coming to the Mulund Depot. The Mulund Depot, located at Devidayal Road, just off Lal Bahadur Shastri Marg is the last depot in the central and eastern suburbs. It is also the easternmost depot among all of BEST’s depots.

Note: The northernmost depot is Gorai Depot, the westernmost depot is Malvani Depot and the southernmost depot is the Backbay Depot.

The Mulund Depot was among the first to get A/C buses along with Oshiwara and Dharavi. It was home to the red Ashok Lelyland Viking AC buses and later on the Purple (Faeries) Cerita fleet as well. You can take a look at both these buses from the Mulund Depot here: The curious case of BEST and its AC buses. Interestingly, Mulund depot hasn’t received any of the new AC buses, be it the Force Motors mini-bus, the Tata Marcopolo CNG midi-bus, the Tata Starbus Hybrid bus or the Olectra electric bus.

If go to the Mulund Depot 20 years ago, we see something very interesting. It had a helipad!

On this snapshot taken on 20 October 2000, you can see a circle marked with an H on it.

This helipad is also visible in a snapshot taken on 3 December 2000.

As you can see, the helipad’s location hasn’t changed, and it intersects with the parking area. Basically it couldn’t be used at night when all the buses returned to the depot.

Now, interestingly, when the next snapshot was taken, on 2 February 2003, the helipad had disappeared. As you can see in the image below, there is no trace of it visible.

Rather strange, isn’t it? If you continue looking at the timeline, you’ll notice that the helipad never does return. What does make numerous appearances, especially post 2009 is the famed Cerita fleet.

For instance, here is a snapshot from 8 February 2011. You can see them Purple Faeries in abundance inside the depot.

Interestingly, according to this 2010 Mumbai Mirror report titled Waiting for next bus? It could be a chopper, BEST had apparently decided to sign an agreement with a private agency called Global Flying Club to set up permanent helipads across several bus depots, Colaba, Worli, Dindoshi, Oshiwara, Dharavi, Kurla and Imax Wadala (presumably Anik or Pratiksha Nagar Depot since Wadala Depot is in the West). While Worli and Colaba depots are very close to defence areas (INS Trata and INS Shikra/INS Kunjal), Kurla would have been interesting ever since it was rebuilt by Kanakia as a multi-storeyed structure. Mulund is not mentioned anywhere in the list, although Backbay is.

An online search for Global Flying Club and Mumbai yielded no results except for an article on The Times of India that spoke about the same thing as the Mumbai Mirror report.

I bet none of you knew about the ‘Best-copter’.

Anyway, that is all from me for the time being. If you’re bored, do go thru the last three months of the blog. There are several satire articles, a few news reports, and plenty of aerial photographs of bus depots in Mumbai.

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Featured image: Mulund Depot on 12 September 2011 by Vishal890.