6 IAF men, civilian killed in Mi-17 copter crash in J&K

SRINAGAR: Six air warriors and a civilian were killed after one Mi-17 V5 helicopter of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Jammu and Kashmir’s Budgam district on Wednesday morning.

The officials said that the Russian made copter crashed in an open field outside Budgam’s Garend Kalan village, seven kilometre from the main town of Budgam, around 10.10 am.

It broke into two and caught fire immediately. Later the charred bodies recovered from the wreckage were identified to be those of a local resident Kifayat Hussain Ganai and six officials of the IAF.

The officials said that the helicopter got airborne from the Srinagar airfield at 10 am for a routine mission.

“All six air warriors on board helicopter, suffered fatal injuries”, they said, adding that a court of inquiry has been ordered to investigate accident.

The locals who rushed to the site of the crash said that the bodies were charred in the incident. They also said that 20-year-old Ganai and several other youth were sitting in the field when the copter crashed.

The crash took place in the backdrop of heavy exchanges of mortar and small arms fire reported from several places along the Line of Control (LoC) and Pakistan’s claim that it shot down two IAF fighter jets which had violated its air space.

It, however, later also said that it did not engage the IAF’s Mi-17 V5 copter which crashed in Budgam.

Around same time, India said that one of its pilots is “missing in action” after an IAF aircraft shot down a Pakistani jet that was targeting installations in Jammu and Kashmir’s Poonch and Rajouri area. Pakistan said that the MiG 21 pilot is in their custody.

India also said that the F-16 fighter jet belonging to the Pakistan Air Force crashed within three kilometers in the Lam valley of Nowshera sector in Rajouri. A parachute was seen dropping as the jet was going down, the officials said.