A helicopter carrying six people, including the pilot, crashed in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Friday while flying from Badrinath to Dehradun.
The chopper, operated by Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt Ltd, was reportedly flying in adverse weather conditions when it lost communication while passing over the Joshimath valley. Several of these incidents have involved helicopters ferrying pilgrims to religious shrines, particularly Kedarnath, with crashes and emergency landings reported during the annual pilgrimage season. Its tracking system also stopped transmitting its location, prompting search and rescue teams from the Indian Army, district administration and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) to be deployed.
On May 8 last year, six people were killed after a helicopter en route to Gangotri Dham crashed in the Gangnani area of Uttarkashi district. Five days later, on May 12, a helicopter blade struck a vehicle at the Badrinath helipad, narrowly averting a major accident. On May 17, a heli ambulance from AIIMS Rishikesh that had gone to airlift a patient suffering from respiratory distress at the Kedarnath shrine made a crash landing near the Kedarnath helipad. In April 2023, a senior official of the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) died after being hit by the tail rotor of a helicopter in Kedarnath. In October 2022, a chopper crashed in Kedarnath, killing all six devotees and a pilot on board. In April 2018, one person was killed and three others injured when an Indian Air Force (IAF) cargo helicopter caught fire while landing in Uttarakhand’s Kedarnath. In June 2013, three choppers crashed while conducting rescue operations during the 2013 Kedarnath tragedy. As many as 23 people, including Air Force personnel, were killed in the crashes. In July 2013, the pilot and co-pilot of a private chopper were killed when it crashed minutes after taking off from flood-hit Kedarnath.
