Chopper wreckage found in remote gorge

The wreckage of the ill-fated Pawans Hans helicopter which went off the radar on August 4 in Arunachal Pradesh has been found exactly after a week in remote Tirap district.

However, the three people onboard —the Deputy Commissioner of Tirap district  Kamalesh Kumar Joshi  with pilots Captian M S Brar from New Delhi  and Captian Rajeev from Hoskote in Karnataka, are still missing. Search operation teams, however, believe that the bodies might be inside a deep gorge, if there are no survivors. According to Arunachal Pradesh government sources, the wreckage site is at a remote hillock that runs into a gorge between Pongkong and Longliang villages in Tirap districts bordering Myanmar.

On Monday, Assam Rifles and CRPF personnel, along with local search teams, reached the site  after a 10-hour walk. While half of the wreckage has been spotted, including the tail of the chopper, the other half is believed to be in the gorge.

“Today, we have conducted search operations. Our teams tried to get to the bottom of the gorge with help of ropes. But due to inclement weather, we have not been able to reach the bottom of the gorge.  As of now, the pilots and the DC is still missing, we would have to reach the depth of the gorge and look for them,” the superintendent of police of Tirap district Jasmeet Singh told Deccan Herald over telephone. 

More reinforcement has been sent to the area, which can be reached after 10-hours of trek. It took a six-day massive combing and search operation by Indian Air Force to trace the wreckage of the copter.

IAF had used Su-30 MKI, C-130, IL-78 aircraft along with surveillance radars. Later, the MI-17, Chetak and Cheetah helicopters were pressed into service to trace the exact location of the wreckage.