New Delhi, Sep 3 - Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy's death in a chopper crash has added to the growing list of Indian politicians killed in aerial accidents. In a country where helicopters are frequently used to ferry VIPs, some also had a narrow escape.

Aviation experts say the helicopter crash rate is much higher compared to that of commercial planes the world over, and this is true of India as well.

YSR's chopper crashed in a forest while flying in a Bell 430 to Chitoor district. He was confirmed dead Thursday, 27 hours after the helicopter went missing.

The tragedy is a grim reminder of the deaths in aerial crashes of Indian politicians Sanjay Gandhi, Madhavrao Scindia, G.M.C. Balayogi, S. Mohan Kumaramangalam, O.P. Jindal, Surendra Singh, Dera Natung and C. Sangma.

Perhaps one of the first Indian political leaders to die in a plane crash was freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose -- on Aug 18, 1945 in present day Taiwan. But many insist to this day that he survived.

Sanjay Gandhi, the younger son of then prime minister Indira Gandhi, was killed when a glider he was flying crashed soon after taking off from the Safdarjung airport in Delhi in 1980.

Scindia, a senior Congress leader and a former cabinet minister, was killed in a plane crash Sep 30, 2001 while travelling to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh to address a public rally.

Lok Sabha speaker and Telugu Desam Party (TDP) leader G.M.C. Balayogi died in a chopper crash March 3, 2002 in Andhra Pradesh. Balayogi was in a Bell 206 helicopter.

An official probe ruled that the crash was caused when the pilot, unable to continue due to poor visibility, mistakenly landed on a pond thinking it was a land surface.

Kumaramangalam, from the Congress, died in a plane crash in 1973 near New Delhi.

Haryana's then power minister O.P. Jindal, a noted industrialist, and agriculture minister Surendra Singh were killed when the chopper carrying them developed a technical snag and went down near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh March 31, 2005.

Arunachal Pradesh education minister Natung was killed in a helicopter crash in May 2001.