Indian minister says helicopter went missing one minute before the crash | War Stories

The Minister of Defense told Parliament that the helicopter carrying the security chief had lost contact with the air traffic controller seven minutes after it arrived.

Indian military helicopter itself fell and killed the security chief, General Bipin Rawat, and 12 others disconnected from air traffic controls seven minutes before landing and did not send an emergency call before a fire broke out in a forested area, India’s security minister said.

In a statement to the Indian Parliament on Thursday, Security Minister Rajnath Singh did not disclose any SOS and personnel to the helicopter or bad weather in the southern region of Tamil Nadu.

Rawat, 63, his wife and 11 soldiers and airmen were killed in the crash on Wednesday.

The only survivor, Captain Varun Singh, a soldier, is in a military hospital, the military said. “Every effort is being made to save his life,” Singh said.

Singh said a military investigation committee went into operation several hours after the accident. Media reports say voice and data recorders, a black box, have been found on the site.

A Russian-built Mi-17V5 helicopter was en route to a military academy in southern Tamil Nadu in India when a helicopter of its boarding helicopter landed near the town of Coonoor on Wednesday.

The cause of the accident was not immediately known. Television footage showed a large amount of smoke from the garbage as locals tried to extinguish the blaze and remove the bodies.

In a brief speech to Parliament, Singh said the Mi-17 V5 helicopter took off on Wednesday 11:48 am from Sulur Air Base. The flight attendants stopped contacting the plane seven minutes before landing at the base of the mountain base at 12.15pm.

“People in the area saw a fire in the woods near Coonoor and rushed to the scene where they saw the wreckage of a military helicopter burning,” Singh said.

Meanwhile, the bodies of Rawat and 12 others who died in the crash have been brought to New Delhi where a senior officer will be laid to rest with all military honors, Singh said.

Rawat, 63, was elected India’s first security chief by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in late 2019. He was also an adviser to the ministry of defense.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Rawat had made significant contributions to the development of weapons in the country. “His knowledge and his sense of humor were strange,” Modi said.

Rawat, a former anti-terrorist soldier, had previously served as military commander and commander of the Indian army in Kashmir and on the Chinese border.

Defense Minister Singh said Rawat “served the country with courage and zeal”.

The US ambassador to New Delhi issued an apology, calling Rawat “a close friend and ally of the United States, overseeing a major boost in India’s security alliance with US troops”.

In September, Rawat spent five days traveling to the US as part of a tour of General Mark Milley to discuss the war situation and the possibility of further cooperation between the two countries, the ambassador said.

Pakistan’s army chief, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, spoke sadly.