Gangtok, April 21: An Indian Army helicopter being flown by two majors went missing near the China border in Sikkim this morning.

The chopper, an ALH Dhruv from the Army Aviation Corps attached to the 33 Corps headquartered in Sukna, was flying in tandem with another helicopter that landed safely at Shiv Mandir near Gangtok at 12,000ft, air force sources said.

Both helicopters had taken off from the Sevoke Military Station under Sukna, near Siliguri.

The advanced light helicopter was on a routine exercise somewhere along the mountainous corridor of North Sikkim bordering the Tibet Autonomous Region when it lost contact with army control at 11.20am, 30km inside Indian territory.

Army sources in Sikkim said the helicopter was lost near Yumasamdong, which is above Yumthang Valley, 160km from Gangtok.

Sources said the helicopter was carrying two pilots of the rank of major and two technicians, one of whom is a junior commissioned officer while the other a non-commissioned officer. This is the first Dhruv with the Indian armed forces to have got into trouble since the fleet was inducted into the air force, army and navy in early 1998, an officer said. The Dhruv is said to have been made specifically for high-altitude missions.

Sikkim shares a 215km border with the Tibet Autonomous Region.

According to information pieced together from various sources, the efforts of the army to trace the missing chopper and four personnel are being hampered by “cloudy weather conditions” and heavy snowfall.

Sources said the army conducted repeated sorties till sunset to locate the missing helicopter and its crew but they could not see much because of low visibility caused by thick clouds and fading light. Light fades rapidly in high-altitude areas in the afternoon.

A search-and-rescue operation on foot by army personnel of the forward units based in North Sikkim, too, has been mounted. But because of a difficult terrain, thick snow and bad weather, not much progress was made.

Tawang crash

A blame game has erupted over the helicopter crash in Tawang on Tuesday that claimed 17 lives, reports PTI.

Pawan Hans asserted today its choppers were “properly and regularly maintained” after the Arunachal Pradesh government charged the operator with flying “non-airworthy” helicopters.

“Our helicopters are properly and regularly maintained and serviced. All of them have valid airworthiness certification and our pilots are highly trained,” said a spokesperson for Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited, owned by the Centre

The pilots of the Mi-17, Varun Gupta and A.K. Tiwari, were “highly experienced and had over 5,000 hours of flying”, he said.

The statement came after the state government wrote a letter to the civil aviation ministry demanding an inquiry into the maintenance status of the helicopters and whether the guidelines of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation were being met.

“Despite repeated written complaints to the Pawan Hans chairman-cum-chief managing director R.K. Tyagi and general manager (marketing) and in-charge of Northeast Sanjoy Kumar to replace the 15-year-old choppers being pressed into service in the state since 1995, the authority remained unmoved,” state civil aviation commissioner Hage Khoda had said yesterday.