IAF to transfer remains of Khandu Thursday
May 4th, 2011 - 10:02 pm ICT by IANSShillong, May 14 (IANS) The Indian Air Force (IAF) Wednesday said helicopter sorties are planned Thursday morning to transfer the remains of Arunachal Pradesh Chief Dorjee Khandu and others killed in the chopper crash near Sela Pass.
“Cheetah helicopter sorties are planned in the morning at 5 a.m. to transfer the mortal remains from Luguthang helipad either to Tawang or Itanagar as per the requirement of the Arunachal Pradesh government,” Ranjeeb Sahoo, IAF spokesman at the Eastern Air Command headquarters in Shillong, told IANS.
He said the ground forces were on the move to reach the crash site and would transfer the victims to the nearest helipad Luguthang, which is around 2-3 km southwest of the crash site.
Earlier in the day, Sahoo said a Sukhoi-30 was airborne from Tezpur for radio relay of minute-to-minute communication from the MI-17 helicopter to the operations centre.
“The coordinates of the crash site were conveyed to the operation room, which in turn was forwarded to different agencies for reaching the crash site,” he said.
“Dropping of retrieval equipments for the ground party by helicopter could not be carried out in the late afternoon due to fading light and deteriorating weather,” Sahoo said.
The Pawan Hans AS350 B-3 helicopter carrying the chief minister and four others, including two pilots, went missing after it took off from Tawang at 9.50 a.m. Saturday.
The last radio contact with the ground was about 20 minutes after the chopper took off as it flew over the Sela Pass along the Chinese border.
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- Khandu's death: Arunachal announces seven-day state mourning - May 05, 2011
- Search for Arunachal chief minister enters fifth day - May 04, 2011
- Bodies of Arunachal CM Khandu, 4 others taken to Tawang - May 05, 2011
- Chopper with Arunachal chief minister still untraced - May 01, 2011
- Search continues for missing Arunachal CM along Indo-Bhutan border - May 02, 2011
- No trace yet of Arunachal CM, search enters fifth day - May 04, 2011
- Chopper with Arunachal chief minister missing (Lead) - Apr 30, 2011
- Arunachal chief minister's helicopter crash site located: Chidambaram - May 04, 2011
- Ground search for Arunachal CM Khandu continues - May 03, 2011
- Wreckage of Arunachal chief minister's chopper found (Lead) - May 04, 2011
- Aerial search resumes for Arunachal CM's missing chopper - May 02, 2011
Tags: as350, cheetah, chief minister, chinese border, chopper, command headquarters, crash site, fading light, helicopter, helipad, indian air force, late afternoon, operations centre, pawan hans, radio contact, radio relay, shillong, sukhoi 30, tezpur, thursday morning