Indian Air Force chopper crash kills 7 personnel in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang

An Mi-17 chopper of the Indian Air Force crashed on Friday near Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, killing all seven personnel on board, a senior IAF official said.

The Mi-17 V5 crashed at about 6 am when it was on a maintenance mission, the official said.

“It is confirmed that a Mi-17 V5 chopper crashed early morning around 6 am in Arunachal Pradesh. All the seven people on board have been confirmed dead in the accident,” the official said.

The helicopter had both air force and army personnel on board and it was carrying supplies for Indian military posts close to the border with China, an official told AP on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to reporters.

The wreckage of the helicopter has been sighted and the police and the army teams have rushed to the mountainous area, the news agency said, quoting a defence ministry official.

The IAF has ordered a court of inquiry to probe the cause of the accident. The Mi-17 V5 is a Russian built medium-lift military transport chopper.

Referring to a string of crashes of IAF’s choppers and military jets in recent years, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said on Thursday: “Our losses in the peacetime are a cause of concern. We are making concerted efforts to minimise accidents and preserve our assets.”

In May this year, two IAF pilots died when the Sukhoi-30 jet crashed near the Assam-Arunachal border during a routine training mission.

With agency inputs