Bipin Rawat senior-most military official to die in an air crash

The last senior military official to die in an air accident was Lt Gen Jameel Mehmood, in 1993

General Bipin Rawat, the first Chief of Defence Staff, has become the senior-most military leader of the country to have died in an air accident so far.

The last senior military official to die in an air accident was Lt Gen Jameel Mehmood, who was the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Command of the Indian Army from October 1992 to May 1993. He and his wife, along with six others, had died when the MI-17 helicopter they were flying in crashed in Bhutan on May 7, 1993.

Two senior officers of the Indian Army and another of the Indian Air Force were among six killed in a helicopter crash in Poonch of Jammu and Kashmir on November 23, 1963. Lt Gen Daulat Singh, the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Western Command of the Indian Army, and Lt Gen Bikram Singh, the commander of the XV Corps, were flying in an Aérospatiale Alouette III helicopter of the IAF from a forward post to another along the ceasefire line with the Pakistan Army.

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The Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the IAF’s Western Air Command, Air Vice Marshal Erlic Pinto was also flying with them. The helicopter, piloted by Flight Lieutenant
SS Sodhi of the IAF, crashed after colliding with telegraph cables, killing all six on board.

Another air accident in February 1952 would have dealt a massive blow to the army and the air force and wiped off many future military top brass, but for the presence of mind, skill and courage of the IAF officer piloting it.

Lt Gen SM Shrinagesh, then General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Indian Army’s Western Command, Quarter Master General Major General KS Thimayya, Chief of General Staff Major General SPP Thorat, Military Secretary Major General Sarda Nand, Major General Mohinder Singh Chopra and Brigadier Ajaib Singh were on board the IAF’s De Havilland Devon aircraft, flown by Flight Lieutenant Suhas Biswas. They were returning to New Delhi after witnessing a military exercise in Lucknow.

Soon after the aircraft took off, one of its engines caught fire, separated from the wing and fell off. Flight Lieutenant Biswas, however, managed to belly-land the aircraft at a village near Sandilla Railway Station in Uttar Pradesh, with everyone on board unhurt.

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Shrinagesh and Thimayya later served as the chief of the Indian Army and Thorat as the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Command.

Flight Lieutenant Biswas was awarded the Ashoka Chakra for saving the lives of senior military officials. He, however, could not beat death the second time, dying on September 1, 1957, when the IAF Dakota aircraft he was flying crashed in the Nilgiri Mountains.

General Rawat too survived a minor air accident once earlier. He was then a Lieutenant General and commander of the Indian Army’s III Corps in Dimapur of Nagaland. The helicopter he was flying in crashed just seconds after it took off from a helipad on February 3, 2015. He and others on board suffered minor injuries.

He, however, was not lucky on Wednesday.

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