Four Army personnel were killed in a Dhruv helicopter crash in north Sikkim near the Sino-India border, days after a Pawan Hans chopper went down in the northeast claiming 17 lives.
Wreckage of the advanced light helicopter (ALH) Dhruv, which had gone missing on Thursday, was traced in the Shiv Mandir area by Army choppers at 9.30 a.m on Friday and ground parties reached the spot an hour-and-a-half later, Eastern Army Command sources said.
The bodies of two pilots and two soldiers were found at the spot, they said.
"Though it seems that the helicopter had crashed due to the inclement weather in the region, a Court of Inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the reasons behind it," they said.
The sources said the helicopter was carrying two pilots of the rank of major and two technicians, one of whom was a junior commissioned officer while the other a non-commissioned officer.
The helicopter had taken off in tandem with another Dhruv yesterday at 9.30 a.m. from Sewak road base in Siliguri on a routine training exercise but lost contact with it around 11.30 a.m. over the Shiv Mandir area.
The chopper was flying at about 15,000 feet near the Yumisamdong area which is now under a thick blanket of snow and covered with dense forest.The area is around 15 km north of Lachung village in north Sikkim.
The army had on Thursday launched a major search operation but had postponed it after five hours till the morning due to inclement weat [...]
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