No fewer than seven (7) persons, including an infant, have been killed in a helicopter crash that occurred at Himalayas, Uttarakhand State of India.
According to Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority officials, the chopper, which was conveying the victims for a Hindu pilgrimage, crashed shortly after takeoff at about 5:30am (00:00 GMT) on Sunday.
Officials said the ill-fated helicopter took off from the temple town of Kedarnath for Guptkashi, before it crashed.
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Those on board have been identified as the pilot, Captain Rajveer Singh Chauhan, and the passengers – Vikram Rawat, Vinod Devi, Trishti Singh, Rajkumar Jaiswal, his wife Shraddha Jaiswal and their two-year-old daughter, Kashi.
Authorities revealed that the bodies of the deceased persons were badly burned in a fire that followed the crash.
Uttarakhand’s State Disaster Response Force told the ANI news agency, that the crash site has been located in a remote and dense forest area, saying rescue operation was under way in coordination with the local police.
LEADERSHIP recalls that a total of 270 passengers and crew members have been confirmed to have lost their lives on Thursday, when a London-bound Air India plane crashed into residential area shortly after take-off in Ahmedabad.
Officials attributed the Sunday crash to poor weather conditions.
Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami in a post on X, described the incident as “very sad.”
