Helicopter crashes in Joshimath Hills, six people missing

Prithviraj Singh

Dehradun, Oct 30 (UNI) Six people, including a pilot and five devotees, are feared dead after their helicopter crashed on Hathi Parvat hill near Chai village in the Joshimath area on Friday afternoon.

All six occupants went missing following the crash, with little hope of survival. The helicopter, which belonged to Trans Aviation Private Limited, was flying back from Badrinath to Dehradun at the time of the crash. A massive hunt is on to locate the helicopter and rescue the missing people. The heli crash tragedy was confirmed by the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA).

In a statement, the authority said, "Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt Ltd's helicopter bearing call sign VT-HCX, operating from Badrinath to Sahastradhara, Dehradun, which took off at approximately 13:14 hours, has been reportedly missing. The helicopter lost communication when it was flying over the Joshimath valley. At the same time, the tracking system could no longer track the helicopter, and its current location was not ascertained."

The UCADA said in its note that teams of the Indian Army, District Administration Chamoli and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) were mobilised and dispatched to initiate search and rescue operations immediately on the receipt of information about the tragedy. It was shared that the persons on board the crashed heli included five devotees and the pilot, identified as Captain Himanshu Sabarwal.

The missing devotees were Prathapa, Arun, Shankar Gowda, Sudheer K, and HS Natraja. The note said the entire fleet of Trans Bharat Aviation Private Limited has been grounded for now. Soon after receiving information about the crash of a civil helicopter en route from Badrinath Dham to Sahastradhara in the Hathi Parvat area, relief and rescue operations were launched with the assistance of various agencies, the Uttarakhand Disaster Management Department said in a statement.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami directed the officials concerned to undertake relief and rescue operations on a war footing and ensure the deployment of all available resources. Following the directions, teams from the SDRF, Indian Army, ITBP, NDRF, police and district administration were dispatched to the crash site. Search and rescue operations were launched both on the ground and from the air. All efforts were being made to reach the crash site and locate the passengers on board. Uttarakhand Secretary for Disaster Management and Rehabilitation Vinod Kumar Suman stated that the army's signal centre team was the first to observe smoke rising from the helicopter in that area and saw it falling rapidly. He said that, besides teams dispatched for rescue operations, all agencies and medical institutions concerned, including Base Hospital Srinagar, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Rishikesh, and other relevant health centres, were put on alert for relief and rescue operations.

Even as search and rescue operations continued to locate those on board the crashed helicopter, UCADA officials said the chances of survival of the passengers were very slim. However, neither the state government nor the district administration or any other state agency had made an official announcement regarding the passengers' survival status.

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