“Weather turbulent in North-East. I’m safe but whole state machinery geared up to locate IAF ALH chopper missing almost at same time,” Kiren Rijuju, India’s Minister of State for Home Affairs, said after he escaped unhurt as another helicopter made an emergency landing in the northeastern part of the country.
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu and state government were mobilizing local people to locate the missing IAF helicopter which was on a rescue mission in Arunachal Pradesh.
The Indian Air Force lost two of its pilots in a crash of its frontline aircraft Sukhoi-30MKI in May this year. The jet crashed near the China border. The reason behind the accident is yet to be disclosed.
The Indian Army has planned to deploy a squadron of 10 HAL Dhruv Mk-IVs in the north-eastern part of Assam which will further go up simultaneously with additional helicopter bases which are going to be operational in coming months along the eastern border.
India supplied seven Dhruv helicopters to Ecuador, of which four had crashed between 2009 and 2015. Lately, Ecuador stopped operation of remaining helicopters and decided to sell them to other countries. However, the Indian government has blamed Ecuador for the high loss rate on the Latin America operator. India said that it did not find any inherent design deficiency in the India-built aircraft.
