Wednesday’s Nilgiris disaster has brought back memories of November 1963 when five senior Indian military commanders were killed in a chopper crash near Poonch in Jammu and Kashmir.
The commanders were on an IAF Aérospatiale Alouette III helicopter on November 22, 1963, travelling to inspect a new water-head that had been constructed after electricity and power supply to Poonch town was affected. The chopper was said to have hit electrical wires at an altitude of 200 feet along the Poonch river.
The commanders on board were Lieutenant General Daulat Singh, General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Command; Air Vice-Marshal E.W. Pinto, Air Officer Commanding, Western Command; Lieutenant General Bikram Singh, General Officer Commanding, 15 Corps; Major General K.N.D. Nanavati, Military Cross, General Officer Commanding, 25 Infantry Division; and Brigadier S.R. Oberoi, Military Cross, Commander, 93 Infantry Brigade.Flight Lieutenant S.S. Sodhi too was killed in the crash.
An air force official said a court of inquiry was under way to ascertain what had caused Wednesday’s crash in Tamil Nadu. He said the inquiry would try to find out whether the cause was a mechanical failure, bad weather or a power-line hit, and from what altitude the chopper had dropped.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi demanded an inquiry into the crash. “These choppers have been procured recently, so a proper investigation and enquiry must be done internally and with the manufacturer,” he tweeted.
