A coffin arrives at Guwahati airport on Wednesday. Picture by UB Photos

Guwahati, April 20: A two-member team from the Calcutta office of the Director General of Civil Aviation reached Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh this morning to probe yesterday’s helicopter crash that left 17 persons dead and six injured. A search is also on to retrieve the black box.

Four of the injured were brought here early this afternoon while all the bodies were brought in the evening. Two crew members are still being treated in Tawang.

Family members and relatives of the victims of the helicopter crash congregated at the airport since morning before an MI-17 chopper landed at 12.28pm with four of the survivors — Dorjee Wangdi, Rajendra Pal, Nishit Bothra and K. Sarawgi.

Of these four, Pal was admitted to the Gauhati Medical College and Hospital, Dorjee was taken to Delhi while Sarawgi and Bothra were taken to Mumbai in air-ambulances by their family members, the operating manager of the Guwahati-Arunachal Pradesh Pawan Hans helicopter services, Simanta Bijoy Deb, said at the airport.

“The two crew members, Capt. Barun Gupta (the pilot of the helicopter) and flight engineer P.K. Chaturvedi, are being treated at Tawang hospital,” he added.

Deb said search was on for the helicopter’s black box, which would help ascertain the cause of the mishap. “Technical snag is suspected to be the reason for the mishap but we cannot tell the exact cause till the probe by the DGCA team is over,” he added.

The Pawan Hans helicopter, which was on regular flight, had taken off from Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International airport in Guwahati at 12.50pm. It crashed at 1.55pm, just before reaching the helipad on the outskirts of Tawang town.

Of the four survivors, Dorjee is a Tawang-based architect while Pal is an engineer with Bhilwara Energy Limited and was working in a hydel power project near Tawang.

“Pal and another engineer, T. Mustafa, took the chopper to reach our project site but Mustafa died in the crash. Mustafa was originally from Canada and his body will be sent there,” Sumit Garg, an official of the company said at the airport.

Farooq Chunawala, the elder brother of Mumbai-based doctor, Asif, who died in the crash, had gone to Tawang in a helicopter to bring back the five bodies of Asif and his family members. Asif, a resident of Andheri in Mumbai, was going to Tawang with his family on a leisure trip.

“Asif had visited several tourist places in Assam earlier. This time, he was here to visit Tawang. Five relatives of Asif have come from Mumbai to take the bodies. They have informed us that the bodies will be buried at Garigaon in Guwahati,” said Mustaq Ahmed, a local resident and a family friend who was at the airport to assist Asif’s relatives from Mumbai.