Chopper crash kills 17 in Arunachal, 6 including pilot survive

Itanagar/Shillong, Apr 19 (PTI) A Mi17 helicopter of
Pawan Hans crashed while landing in the mountainous region of
Tawang in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh
Tuesday killing 17 persons on board including three crew
members but its pilot and five others miraculously survived
with serious burn injuries.
Seventeen persons were killed while two crew members
including the Pilot Captain Varun Gupta and four passengers
survived with grievous injuries, Tawang Deputy Commissioner
Gamlin Padu said. The injured were rushed to the civil
hospital at Tawang and would be air-lifted to Guwahati
Wednesday, he said.
This is the second helicopter crash in Tawang district
bordering China. An Indian Air Force(IAF) MI 17 chopper
crashed minutes after take off on November 19 last year
killing all 12 on board.
The civilian Mi17 chopper of state-owned Pawan Hans,
manufactured in 1996, was on a regular flight to Tawang from
the Lokopriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in
Guwahati, Pawan Hans sources said. It had valid certificate of
airworthiness till August 28 this year.
There were two versions as to what caused the mishap.
Pawan Hans sources said the chopper caught fire, broke
into pieces and crashed into a gorge close to the Tawang Civil
helipad at around 1357 hours. The helicopter had taken off at
1245 hours, they said.
The exact cause was yet to be ascertained though a
technical snag could not be ruled out, the sources said.
An official in the Directorate General of Civil
Aviation(DGCA) said that as per initial reports the chopper
crash-landed "due to likely wind shear and down draft while
landing and caught fire on impact to the ground".
The official said in New Delhi that a committee would
be set up to investigate the accident and a high-level team of
DGCA officers led by Director General E K Bharat Bhushan will
visit the accident site Wednesday.
Security forces along with the locals have swung into
rescue operations.
A persual of the passenger manifest showed that a
Colonel-level officer and three women were among the dead.
A man, woman, two minors--a boy and a girl-- had Asif as the
surname and the four persons could be from one family.
Those killed were identified as Mrs Anita, A Baruah,
Dr Tendon, Dr Asif, Mrs R Asif, Mrs Jahara, Ms Asif, Master
Asif, Mr A Sharma, A K Saraugi, Ms N Botha, Col Sharma, Mr W
Bhatia, Mr T Mustafa.
The three crew members killed were a second pilot
Captain Tiwari, Flight Attendant A Dixit and Assistant
Maintenance Engineer S B Kulkarni.
Besides Captain Varun Gupta, the other survivors were
Randiv Kumar Chaturvedi, Dorjee Wangdi, Rishi Bothra, Rajendra
Pal and Mrs Karishma Saraugi.
An official statement said that the MI-17 helicopter
(VT-PHF) of Pawan Hans Helicopters Ltd was carrying 18
passengers, including two minors, and five crew members
from Guwahati to Tawang.