New Delhi, Sept. 13: The helicopter crash that killed Y.S.R. Reddy seems to have made many politicians nervous about chopper rides, leading to the cancellation of a conference of ministers, industry and journalists in Shillong.

Ministers invited to the bi-annual Editor’s Conference on Social Sector Issues, scheduled on September 18 and 19, were not willing to risk monsoon helicopter flights to Meghalaya, one of the world’s wettest regions, government sources said.

Officials said the team of ministers — all the social sector ministries usually attend the conference — was to have taken a plane from Delhi to Guwahati, and then fly to Barapani on a helicopter. Barapani airport, 32km from Shillong, has plane links only with Calcutta.

“All the ministers had given their dates last month, and we had made arrangements accordingly,” said an official of the rural development ministry, co-organiser of the conference with the information and broadcasting (I&B) ministry.

“But after YSR’s tragic death (on September 2), they developed cold feet and started giving one excuse or the other.”

Rural development minister C.P. Joshi was to inaugurate the conference, as is the convention, sources said. He had agreed, too, but last week handed over the task to Pradeep Jain, his junior.

Jain passed the job on to fellow minister of state Agatha Sangma, who is from Meghalaya, arguing she was the better choice as a representative of the Northeast.

But Sangma declined the offer because she would be in the UK at the time to receive an Alumni Laureate Award from the University of Nottingham, the sources said.

The organisers then contacted I&B minister Ambika Soni, who agreed before backing out.

“The ministers wanted to explore the possibility of a direct (plane) flight to Shillong; but there is no Delhi-Shillong direct flight,” the official said.

“The other option was to fly to Calcutta and take a plane to Shillong. But by then, reports of heavy rainfall in Meghalaya had come in and all the ministers became hesitant, feeling it was not safe to fly.”

A Barapani airport official, however, said it was “very safe’’ to fly. “There is no problem in flying; everything is normal here,’’ he said.

Three Air India flights land at Barapani every week — on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday — each carrying 20-25 people.

“Although it is raining heavily here, no flight has been cancelled so far. It might be the reports of heavy rain that forced Delhi to rethink,’’ the airport official said.

The official explanation for the programme’s cancellation is that the ministers would be preoccupied with other business.

“There is no point holding the conference if all social sector ministers are not able to attend. We may hold it later if everything works out well,’’ an I&B ministry official said.

The conference, held twice a year, is usually attended by the ministries of rural development, social justice and empowerment, women and child development, labour, housing and urban poverty alleviation, human resource development, and health and family welfare.

The previous conference was held in Delhi and the likely venue for the next is Srinagar.