A Mi-17V5 helicopter carrying Indian Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat crashed Wednesday in Tamil Nadu, the state in the southeastern corner of the country. Thirteen people on board, including the general and 4 crew members, have died.
General Bipin Rawat and his wife were on board a Mi-17V5 helicopter on their way to an army officer training centre when the Russian-built aircraft ran into trouble. The plane crashed near Coonoor, in Tamil Nadu. The Indian Air Force wrote on Twitter that “an investigation has been launched to determine the cause of the accident.”
The Chief of Defence Staff and his wife, along with eleven others, were killed in the accident. General Bipin Rawat was on a visit to Defence Services Staff College, Wellington (Nilgiri Hills) to address the faculty and student officers of the Staff Course.
Videos on Indian news channels show the wreckage of the burning aircraft at the accident site. It is a densely forested area, in the Nilgiris district, close to the aircraft’s destination. The helicopter crashed about ten kilometres from the nearest road. As a result, rescuers had to get to the spot on foot.
General Bipin Rawat (63), who is considered a close of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is India’s first chief of defence. The government created the position in 2019.