Army Headquarters orders ‘Court of Inquiry’

Itanagar/New Delhi. Before it crashed at Miging in Arunachal Pradesh, the pilot of the Army Helicopter (ALH) made a “mayday” call to the Air Traffic Control (ATC) room to send an emergency message about a technical snag. Army officials gave this information on Saturday. At the same time, the body of the last army personnel missing in the helicopter crash has been found, after which the total number of dead has increased to five. The Army Helicopter (ALH) carrying five army personnel, including two pilots, was on a regular flight on Friday morning. During this, he had an accident near Miging village, about 25 km from Tuting town, at around 10.43 am.

The bodies of four other army personnel were recovered from the accident site in a densely forested mountainous area, about 35 km from the border with China. The ‘Mayday’ call pertains to informing air traffic control by pilots in case of emergency. An official said, “Before the accident, ATC had received a ‘Mayday’ call, which indicates a technical or mechanical fault. It will be focused during the Court of Inquiry (COI).” He said the Army Headquarters has ordered a ‘Court of Inquiry’ to ascertain the cause of the accident.

ALH pilots were experienced
The official said, “It has been told that the weather was good for flight. The pilots had a combined experience of over 600 hours flying the ALH-WSI. Also, he had given a total of more than 1,800 hours of flight services. The aircraft was inducted into the Army in June 2015.” The army has expressed condolences to the bereaved families. Army tweeted, “Army Chief Manoj Pandey and all Army personnel salute the brave jawans Major Vikas Bhambu and Major Mustafa Bohra, CFN Ashwin KV, Havildar Biresh Sinha and NK Rohitashv Kumar, who laid down their lives in the line of duty. Gave. Deepest condolences to the bereaved families.”