Two Indian Army pilots died after their helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Kameng district on Thursday morning, reported PTI, citing a defence spokesperson.
The pilots have been identified as Lieutenant Colonel VVB Reddy and Major Jayanth A, defence spokesperson Lt Colonel Mahendra Rawat said.
The chopper had taken off from Missamari in Assam’s Sonitpur district to Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
Rawat said that the aircraft encountered “inconducive weather” on its sortie and was returning to Missamari when it had crashed.
“The helicopter lost contact with Air Traffic Control around 9.15 am,” the spokesperson said. “Five search parties of the Indian Army, SSB [Sashastra Seema Bal] and ITBP [Indo-Tibetan Border Police] were immediately launched. The wreckage of the aircraft was found near Banglajaap, the east village of Mandala.”
He added that a court of inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of the accident.
Rohit Rajbir Singh, the superintendent of police in the Special Investigation Cell, said villagers had found the crashed chopper ablaze at 12.30 pm in Dirang and informed district officials about it.
The area has no mobile connectivity and the weather is extremely foggy with visibility as low as five meters, he added.
Thursday’s accident comes months after another Army chopper had crashed near Migging village in Arunachal Pradesh on October 21, killing five soldiers. The Army had said that technical fault was likely to be the cause of the crash.
On March 11 last year, Army’s Cheetah helicopter had crashed in the Gurez sector of Jammu and Kashmir, killing an official of major rank.
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