ITANAGAR, April 19 � In a major accident, 17 persons including two children were killed after a Pawan Hans helicopter with 18 passengers and five crew members on board caught fire and crashed into a gorge before landing at Tawang civil helipad in Arunachal Pradesh today. However, six survivors with grievous injuries were rescued and rushed to a local hospital, said an official source.
The deceased included 14 passengers and three crew members. They have been identified as Anita, A Baruah, Dr Tendon, Dr Asif, R Asif, Jahara, Ms Asif, master Asif, A Sharma, A K Saraugi, N Botha, Col Sharma, W Bhatia, T Mustafa and crew members - Captain Tiwari, Captain Dixit and Kulkarni.
The seriously injured who have been identified as Captain Barun Gupta, Randiv Kumar Chaturvedi, Dorjee Wangdi, Rishi Bothra, Rajendra Pal and Karishma Saraugi � were rushed to Tawang Civil Hospital for immediate treatment.
The ill-fated MI 17 chopper, belonging to Pawan Hans Helicopters Limited, had taken off from Guwahati at 12.45 pm and crashed near the Tawang civil helipad around 2 pm falling from a height of 15 meters into the gorge.
Although the exact cause of the accident was yet to be ascertained some technical snag cannot be ruled out, said the source. Thousands of people, including administrative officials, district police, Army and ITBP jawans rushed to the spot soon after the chopper hit the ground. They somehow managed to extract six survivors but couldn�t put off the blazing fire that spread to the engine and the fuel box charring rest of the people to death and reducing the chopper to ashes.
Meanwhile, Arunachal Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, who is camping at Tawang to attend a North East level review meeting on RD programmes, mourned the sad demise of Pawan Hans chopper�s passengers and crew members and prayed to Lord Buddha to give enough strength to the bereaved families to bear the irreparable loss caused to them. He also wished speedy recovery of the injured ones.