Arunchal Chopper Crash: Bodies of Pilots, Official Found

Itanagar:  The bodies of an Arunachal Pradesh government official and two pilots onboard a helicopter that went missing six days ago have been found along with most of the wreckage of the crashed chopper.

Deputy Commissioner of Tirap District Kamalesh Joshi and the two pilots of the helicopter MS Brar and Rajeev Hoskote were killed in the crash.

Their dead bodies and debris have been found near the remote Kheti village of Tira district of Arunachal Pradesh. Search operations are still on for the remaining wreckage.

The remains will be airlifted from the site and brought to Tirap district headquarters in Khonsa tomorrow by a special team from the High Altitude Warfare School in Sonmarg.

More than 100 soldiers from the Indian Army are already at the steep gorge where the wreckage was found and are preparing for what is expected to be a precarious retrieval operation.

The Dauphin VT-PHK helicopter owned by Pawan Hans Helicopters took off from Khonsa at 10:15 am on Tuesday for Longding and lost communication with the ground after the Air Traffic Control in Chabua contacted the pilot five minutes after departure.

Bad weather affected search and rescue operations and it was only yesterday morning that the wreckage was located after extended sorties.

In 2011, then Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu and four other people died after their Pawan Hans chopper crashed at a remote location in the state.

A few days later, another helicopter crashed while landing in Tawang, killing 16 people.

Following the crashes, commercial chopper services were stopped in the state till 2013 when Pawan Hans restarted service in Arunachal Pradesh and other parts of the region.