The Mi17V5 helicopter, which crashed with Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) Bipin Rawat and 13 other people on board on Wednesday was observed flying unusually low before it entered into heavy fog and smashed into the hillside. The crashed chopper went up in flames with all 14 people which included the CDS, his wife and other high ranking army officials. Group Captain Varun Singh is the sole survivor of the ill-fated military helicopter crash that killed India's first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, his wife, and 11 others were killed on Wednesday.
Mi-17V5 chopper crash | Key Points
1. Jayaseelan, a construction worker who resides near the southern Indian town of Coonoor heard a distinctive rumble of a helicopter closing in and had rushed outside after hearing the loud noise of the crash, news agency Reuters reported.
2. "I saw smoke billowing out of the woods and an odd cracking sound. The helicopter had crashed near my brother's house," the 57-year-old construction worker told Reuters.
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3. Military helicopters often fly on this route, but the chopper this time was unusually loud and closer to land as it went through heavy fog, Jayaseelan and another eyewitness Satish Kumar told Reuters.
4. The locals struggled to reach the IAF chopper because of the intensity of the blazing flames engulfing it and emergency services had arrived shortly after, the report added. Further, the firefighting equipment also had trouble reaching the site due to hilly terrain, eyewitnesses told the news agency.
5." Out of the first four people brought out from the crash site, one was alive, he was crying in pain," Kumar told Reuters. The rescue team and locals worked provided blankets to wrap the bodies and many officers were severely burnt.
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6. The IAF aircraft had taken off from the nearby Sulur Air Base near Coimbatore before noon on Wednesday and was headed to Coonoor. The base lost contact with it around 20 minutes later, just before it was due to land in the cantonment town of Wellington, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh told parliament.
