Part of an overnight-built helipad at Pramadam sank after President Droupadi Murmu’s helicopter landed; concrete had not set, police say. Full facts and timeline.
A section of the helipad at the Rajiv Gandhi Indoor Stadium in Pramadam, Pathanamthitta, sank shortly after President Droupadi Murmu’s helicopter landed there on Oct. 22, 2025. The landing had been shifted at the last minute from Nilackal near Pamba because of bad weather, and authorities built a temporary helipad overnight at the stadium. When the helicopter touched down, depressions formed under the wheels and a portion of the tarmac gave way; police and fire personnel then had to physically push the chopper’s wheels out of the collapsed area.
District officials told PTI that the concrete used to create the improvised helipad had not fully set and therefore could not bear the helicopter’s weight — a key cause of the failure, according to local law-enforcement sources. No injuries were reported and the President’s schedule proceeded after safety checks, but the incident has raised immediate questions about last-minute site changes, engineering oversight and VIP-landing protocols.
Experts and planners will likely focus on best practices for emergency helipad construction: allow full curing time for poured concrete, use certified temporary landing mats or metallic planking for short-notice landings, and ensure engineering sign-off before permitting VIP landings. For readers and editors aiming to capture search traffic, target long-tail phrases such as “why did Pramadam helipad collapse” and “President Murmu helicopter helipad incident timeline” alongside short keywords like “helipad collapse Kerala” and “President Murmu landing news.”
