Mi-17 With Gen Rawat, his wife, 12 others goes down in Nilgiris; just 1 survivor

NEW DELHI: The country’s first Chief of Defence Staff, General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat, a serving brigadier and 10 more defence personnel died in an IAF helicopter crash in hilly terrain and foggy conditions near Coonoor, in Tamil Nadu’s Nilgiris district, on Wednesday afternoon. Group Captain Varun Singh, directing staff at DSSC, was the sole survivor and is receiving medical treatment at the military hospital in Wellington.


“With deep regret, it has now been ascertained that Gen Bipin Rawat, Mrs Madhulika Rawat and 11 other persons on board have died in the unfortunate accident,” the IAF tweeted on Wednesday evening. The IAF has ordered an inquiry to ascertain the cause of the helicopter crash.

Gen Rawat left Delhi in the morning and landed at Sulur Air Force Station in Coimbatore around 11.35am. He boarded an IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter that took off from Sulur airbase around 11.50am for the DSSC in Wellington. The chopper crashed into a gorge close to Nanjappa Chathram, a tribal settlement near Katteri, around 7km from Coonoor and less than 20km from the DSSC, around 12.20pm, according to eyewitnesses. The chopper crashed just seven minutes before it was to land in Wellington. “It was very misty in the morning. I saw the chopper hit a huge tree and crash with a bang,” said Prakash of Burliar village.


The others who died in the crash were Brigadier LS Lidder (the CDS’ defence adviser), Lt Col Harjinder Singh, Wing Commander PS Chauhan, Squadron Leader Kuldeep Singh, Junior Warrant Officers Das and Pradeep A, Havildar Satpal, Naik Jitendra Kumar, Naik Gursewak Singh, Lance Naik Vivek Kumar and Lance Naik Sai Teja.

Gen Rawat left Delhi in the morning and landed at Sulur Air Force Station in Coimbatore around 11.35am. He boarded an IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter that took off from Sulur airbase around 11.50am for the DSSC in Wellington. The chopper crashed into a gorge close to Nanjappa Chathram, a tribal settlement near Katteri, around 7km from Coonoor and 10km from the DSSC, around 12.20pm, according to eyewitnesses. The chopper crashed just seven minutes before it was to land at the Wellington helipad.

“It was very misty in the morning. I saw the chopper flying just 200m above my house. It hit a huge tree and crashed with a bang. People living nearby ran away from their houses,” said Prakash, a resident of Burliar hamlet who saw the chopper crash from just 100 feet away. Prakash and other residents in the locality rushed to the crash site where they found the chopper burning.

The terrain is hilly, consisting mostly of forest land and tea estates. Around 200 dwellings are located in a scattered manner close to the accident spot.
A Sivakumar, another villager and among the first to reach the spot, said there were 11 people in the burning chopper while three were found a few meters away, apparently flung out by the impact. They had severe burn injuries. “One of the injured was groaning. In a muffled voice he asked us for water,” Sivakumar said.

By 12.40pm, the first rescue team, comprising fire service personnel and health workers, had reached the spot. Air Force personnel joined the operation and handled the technical issues while dismantling pieces of the chopper during the rescue operation.

Rescue efforts were hampered by absence of vehicular access to the crash site and the absence of a water source to put out the fire. It took a few minutes for hoses to be connected to each other from the fire tenders to get closer to the crash site, and more than 2.5 hours to put out the fire in the chopper.
C Dandapani, a fireman, said since ambulances could not reach the spot, they got bedsheets from the residents to carry the injured from the gorge. “We first rescued the three found outside the chopper and sent them to the Army hospital in Wellington,” he said.

By 1.30pm, at least seven bodies had been recovered, but rescue operations got delayed subsequently as bodies were found trapped under the chopper debris. It was only at around 4pm that the last body was retrieved. Subsequently, the crash site was cordoned off.
Of the 14 who were on board, two were rescued alive. However, one died on the way to hospital. All the 13 bodies are at the Wellington military hospital for a post-mortem. Tamil Nadu chief minister M K Stalin visited Wellington military hospital in the evening.