A helicopter carrying pilgrims from Kedarnath to Guptkashi crashed in “zero visibility” on Sunday morning, killing all seven people onboard and spotlighting longstanding allegations that profit-hungry Char Dham Yatra chopper operators were recklessly ignoring weather risks and endangering lives.
Five pilgrims including a two-year-old child, the pilot and an employee of the Badrinath Kedarnath Mandir Samiti died as the Bell 407 chopper of Aryan Aviation fell from the sky in Gaurikund, Rudraprayag.
The tragedy, marking the fifth helicopter scare or crash on the pilgrimage route since May and coming just three days after the Air India Dreamliner crash, appeared to shake the Uttarakhand and central governments out of their torpor.
Authorities announced a two-day suspension of Char Dham helicopter services and strict monitoring of safety protocols, but government and private sources emphasised that the aviation companies had so far flouted all regulations with impunity.
Rahul Chaubey, the state government’s nodal officer (coordinator) for helicopter services, told the media the crash happened amid “thick fog and zero visibility” but didn’t explain why the helicopter was allowed to fly in such weather.
Government sources said each helicopter flight required clearance from the state office of the directorate-general of civil aviation (DGCA).
A media release from the state government said: “The helicopter took off from Guptkashi at 05:10 hrs and landed at Shri Kedarnath ji helipad at 05:18 hrs. The helicopter took off again at 05:19 hrs for Guptkashi and crashed near Gaurikund.”
Sources said this statement — revealing how the helicopter offloaded one set of pilgrims at Kedarnath and took off with another within a minute — was testimony to the private operators’ greed and recklessness.
“It usually takes an hour to check a chopper’s fitness after it has completed a flight. But the service providers want to fly as many times as possible in a day,” a state government official said.
A civil aviation ministry statement said the crash was reported to have occurred “between 05:30-05:45 hrs”, which suggests the helicopter — scheduled to land at 5.27am — had lost its way because of poor visibility.
Citing “preliminary indications”, the ministry said “the probable cause may be controlled flight into terrain (CFIT)”, and added there was “poor visibility and extensive clouding at the valley entry area”.
A CFIT refers to an aircraft being flown into the ground, water or an obstacle.
Operator ‘greed’
About a dozen private companies operate an average of 290 helicopter flights a day on the Char Dham route, which refers to the four principal pilgrimage sites of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Gangotri and Yamunotri, state government sources said.
They said the companies charge between ₹4,000 and ₹10,000 per passenger for the 8-minute Guptkashi-Kedarnath trip, and between ₹40,000 and ₹1 lakh for the 40-minute flight between Dehradun and Kedarnath.
Officials and local people alleged that the “profit-hungry” service providers ignored every safety norm and got their choppers to make up to 10 round trips a day each.
It was only on Saturday that chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami had warned the service providers to mind the weather and ensure their helicopters passed all the fitness tests and the pilots were adequately experienced.
Social activist Anoop Nautiyal told PTI the state government seemed not to be learning any lessons from the recent chopper mishaps.
“Four days ago, news came that there will be strict norms guiding heli operations now – only 3-4 passengers will be allowed to board a chopper, not 5-6,” he said.
“However, four days later, seven people, including the pilot, died in yet another helicopter accident.”
The state government’s media release said: “As a precautionary measure, the directorate-general of civil aviation has already reduced the frequency of helicopter operations to Chardham.... The accident would be investigated by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.”
Asked for details, government sources said the DGCA had recently fixed the number of helicopter services to Kedarnath to nine an hour (during the daytime) but the order was not being strictly followed.
A state tourism department report says over 66,000 pilgrims used the helicopter service since April this year.
The dead
Two of the pilgrims who died were from Uttar Pradesh and three from Maharashtra. Vikram Singh Rawat, the temple Samiti employee, was a local man.
Pilot Rajveer Singh Chauhan, 37, had served in the army for over 15 years and had vast experience of flying missions over different terrains, a PTI report from Jaipur said.
A resident of Shastri Nagar in Jaipur, Chauhan had been working for Aryan Aviation since last October.
“I got information about the crash from his colleague,” his father Govind Singh said.
He said Rajveer’s wife was a lieutenant colonel in the army and “gave birth to twins four months ago”.
Action
The civil aviation ministry statement cited several decisions:
- Aryan Aviation’s operations on the Char Dham route have been suspended.
- Two helicopters belonging to TransBharat Aviation “were found to have been airborne under similar unsuitable weather conditions”. The licences of both pilots have been suspended for six months.
- All charter and shuttle helicopter operations in the region have been suspended on June 15 and 16 as a safety precaution.
- The Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) has been directed to hold a review with all operators and pilots before the resumption of services to ensure full alignment with safety protocols.
- The Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) has been directed to hold a review with all operators and pilots before the resumption of services to ensure full alignment with safety protocols.
- The UCADA will establish a dedicated command-and-control room to monitor real-time operations and ensure immediate escalation of any risk indicators.
- The DGCA has been directed to immediately post officers from “airworthiness, safety and operations” to oversee all helicopter flights in the Kedarnath valley and review the functioning of the UCADA command-and-control room.