Pawan Hans helicopter wreckage spotted in gorge

Paratroopers of the Indian Army and some mountaineers will be pressed into service on Wednesday to search for the Pawan Hans chopper and its passengers that went missing in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh last week.Changlang Deputy Commissioner Chanchal Yadav said the aerial search operations have located the main portion of the wreckage of the chopper lying in a gorge between two hills but the steep downward climb has made it difficult for the rescue teams to reach the exact spot. “The wreckage has been located between Pongkong and longliang villages in Tirap district. The aerial distance to the location Khonsa is about 12 km. The wreckage is lying in a deep gorge. Once we can reach the wreckage, we would be able to find out about the fate of the three passengers of the chopper,” she said while talking to The Pioneer on Tuesday.

“A team of paratroopers of the Army and mountaineer will leave for the location by road tomorrow and they would try to reach the wreckage to get the details,” she said while refuting the reports that the bodies of the three persons on board the chopper were found on Tuesday.

The Pawan Hans Dauphin chopper went missing mid air after it took off from Khonsa in Tirap district on August 4. Tirap Deputy Commissioner Kamlesh Kumar Joshi and two pilots of the chopper were on its way to longding that day on a routine sortie and it was supposed to return to Mohanbari airport in Dibrugarh when the incident took place.

Hectic search operations have been on to locate the chopper and its three boarders by IAF choppers, Army, the Assam Rifles, Arunachal police personnel and local villagers since last eight days.