Itanagar: The Air Traffic Control (ATC) received 'May Day call' from the ill-fated Advanced Light Helicopter carrying 5 Army personnel on board before it crashed near Migging, around 25 km south of Tuting of Arunachal Pradesh's Upper Siang district. The 'call' suggested a malfunction which could either be due to a technical or mechanical failure, said a senior army official.
"This will form the focus of the Court of Inquiry, which has been immediately constituted to investigate the causes of the accident. It is reported that the weather was good for flying operations. The pilots had more than 600 combined flying hours on the chopper category that they were flying, and have 1800 service flying hours between them," Lt Col Walia said.
Also read: Army's advanced light helicopter crashes in Arunachal Pradesh; four killed
The aircraft that crashed was inducted into service in June 2015. The chopper is an attack helicopter manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). Also known as HAL Rudra is a weapon system integrated (WSI) Mk-IV variant of the Dhruv advanced light helicopter (ALH) and is the first armed helicopter produced indigenously in India.
The toll in the crash rose to five with the body of the last missing personnel being recovered on Saturday, a defence spokesperson said. The advanced light helicopter (ALH), carrying five Army personnel including two pilots, was on regular sorties when it crashed at 10.43 am Friday, in a densely wooded mountainous area, around 35 km from the border with China.
