365Telugu.com Online News, March 16, 2023: An Army Cheetah helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh’s Bomdila on Thursday. West Kameng district SP BR Bomareddy said that both the pilots died in the helicopter accident.
The bodies of the dead pilots were identified as Lt Col VVB Reddy and Major Jayant A and recovered from the crash site. The bodies of both were shifted to the nearby hospital. The bodies were found around 4 pm. The Army has ordered an inquiry into the incident.
Lt Col Mahendra Rawat, Defense PRO in Guwahati, said, “The crashed helicopter was on a short sortie near Bomdila. Contact with Air Traffic Control was lost around 9.15 am.
In October last year too, an Army Cheetah helicopter crashed in Tawang area and a pilot died while undergoing treatment. Defense spokesperson Lt Col Mahendra Rawat said that the Chita helicopter of Army Aviation lost contact with Air Traffic Control (ATC) at around 9.15 am on Thursday near Bomdila in Arunachal Pradesh.
It was later learned that the helicopter had crashed near Mandal, west of Bomidila. A Cheetah helicopter also crashed in October last year.
Last year on October 5, an Army Cheetah helicopter crashed in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh. Two army pilots were injured in the accident and one died while undergoing treatment. An Army official said the accident took place at Nyamzong Chu near Bap Teng Kang Falls in Gemithonk Circle, Forward Area of Tawang, around 10 am. The helicopter with two pilots was coming from Surva Samba area on a routine sortie.
After receiving information about the accident, a relief rescue team reached the spot and then pulled out the two seriously injured pilots and rushed them to the hospital in an ambulance.
One of the two pilots, Lt Col Saurabh Yadav, died while undergoing treatment. This is not the first helicopter accident in Tawang. In 2017, five IAF personnel and two Army officers were killed when an Air Force Mi-17 V5 helicopter crashed.