2 pilots killed as Army chopper crash-lands in J-K's Udhampur

Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 21

Two pilots of the Indian Army’s Aviation Corps died on Tuesday morning when the helicopter they were flying crash-landed near Patnitop in Jammu and Kashmir.

The pilots, Major Rohit Kumar and Major Anuj Rajput, had taken off from Udhampur in the morning and were flying in a single-engine ‘Cheetah’ helicopter that crash-landed at Shiv Garh Dhar area in Udhampur district. The two were injured and evacuated to the hospital.

“Both the pilots were critically injured during helicopter crash-landing and were evacuated to the nearest medical facility but they succumbed to their injuries,” an Indian Army spokesperson based in Jammu said.

This is the second incident of an Army Aviation helicopter crashing in six weeks. On August 3, a Rudra helicopter had crashed into the lake of the Ranjit Sagar Dam across the Ravi.