A helicopter ferrying pilgrims near the Himalayan temple town of Kedarnath in northern India crashed shortly after takeoff on Sunday, killing all seven people on board, including a two-year-old child, authorities confirmed.
The aircraft, which took off around 5:30am local time (00:00 GMT), was en route from Kedarnath to Guptkashi, a town approximately 37 kilometers (23 miles) away, when it went down in a densely forested area. Officials from the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority said the crash occurred just minutes after departure and is believed to have been caused by poor weather conditions.
Among the dead were the pilot, Captain Rajveer Singh Chauhan, and six passengers: Vikram Rawat, Vinod Devi, Trishti Singh, Rajkumar Jaiswal, his wife Shraddha Jaiswal, and their daughter, Kashi. Authorities reported that all bodies were severely burned due to a fire that followed the crash.
Rescue operations were launched by the State Disaster Response Force in coordination with local police. Officials described the crash site as remote and difficult to access due to the terrain and vegetation.
Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami called the incident “very sad” in a post on social media platform X (formerly Twitter), expressing condolences to the victims’ families.
Kedarnath, situated at an altitude of 3,584 metres (11,759 feet), is one of Hinduism’s most revered pilgrimage destinations and attracts tens of thousands of devotees during the annual summer season. While many pilgrims undertake a demanding trek through the mountainous region, helicopter services are popular among those seeking a quicker or more comfortable journey. However, the region’s unpredictable weather and high-altitude conditions often make flying dangerous.
The crash marks the fifth helicopter incident in Uttarakhand in less than two months. On June 7, a helicopter operating in the Kedarnath Valley was forced to make an emergency landing on a highway due to a technical fault; the pilot was injured, but all passengers survived. Last month, another helicopter crash in the state’s Uttarkashi district claimed six lives.
The latest crash also comes just days after a major aviation disaster in Ahmedabad, where an Air India flight went down, killing all but one of the 242 passengers on board, along with dozens on the ground. Indian authorities are now facing renewed scrutiny over aviation safety, particularly in high-risk areas like Uttarakhand.
With input from Al Jazeera
