New Delhi, October 29
On a day when an officer of the Army Aviation Corps got the Army’s Flight Safety Trophy, one of its Cheetah helicopters with General Officer Commanding of the Sixth Mountain Division based at Bareilly, Major-General D.P. Singh, and a
Lieutenant Colonel on board went missing near the border with China beyond Joshimath this morning.
Ground search parties and Army Aviation Corps and the Indian Air Force’s aerial search parties were despatched to the region to locate the wreckage which was spotted late in the evening by one of the ground search parties. However there was no official confirmation to it.
According to reports here the Cheetah helicopter took off from the Bareilly base at about 7.30 in the morning on a routine “recee mission” but lost air contact at about 9.30 am.
With bad weather conditions prevailing the officials at the base immediately got alerted and despatched not only the ground search parties but also alerted the Indian Air Force. Both the Army Aviation Corps and the Indian Air Force also despatched two helicopters to the region for aerial survey but could not achieve any success.
Sources however said that later in the evening a ground search party was able to spot the wreckage in the Uttaranchal hills but could not approach it due to the night conditions. Sources said that efforts would now be made to approach the wreckage
tomorrow morning Incidentally, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had also informed its counterpart in China about the possible fatal mishap requesting them to carry out searches in the border region in Tibet.
The other two Army officers on board the chopper have been identified as Lt-Col B.K. Pande and Captain Arjun Sardana, who was said to be piloting the helicopter.
This is the worst Army aviation disaster in the past 10 years. In 1994 an Army Aviation Corps helicopter with a Major-General on board along with one Lt-Colonel and three Majors had crashed in the Sikkim region.
However, the worst accident in the Army Aviation Corps history was in November 1963 when the Army lost two of its top ranked Generals and Indian Air Force, the Chief of its Western Air Command (WAC). Besides the IAF’s WAC chief, Army’s GOC-in-C Western Command and the 15 Corps Corps Commanding Officer, also of a Lt-General’s rank, and a Brigadier were on board the helicopter, which crashed in the Poonch region of Jammu and Kashmir.
Incidentally, the Army Aviation Corps saw its last fatal accident in 2002 when a Major and Captain were killed. Only this morning the Chief of Army Staff, General N.C. Vij, had awarded Army’s Flight Safety trophy for the year 2003-2004 to Lt Col S. Anand.
