Pet dogs help locate missing chopper

Jabalpur, July 18 (UNI) Proving their utility, pet dogs of a villager played an important role in tracing the dead bodies of four crew members and the wreckage of the Chhattisgarh Government helicopter, which was missing since July 14.

The wreckage of the six-seater Eurocopter chopper was found in the dense forest on the bank of Tanda river on the border of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

The state Government, which purchased the helicopter in 2001, even sought the help of the ISRO, as the missing plane could not be located during the massive operation involving police, the CRPF and two IAF helicopters besides one helicopter of the Madhya Pradesh Government in the past four days.

Mansingh, a farmer from Lamara village of Chhattisgarh's Rajnandgaon district, spotted the wreckage and dead bodies of crew members yesterday when he had gone to the fields with his pet dogs and buffalo.

After taking bath in Tanda river, he found that his dog was standing near the bodies on the other side of the river which falls in Madhya Pradesh.

The farmer returned to the village and informed Sarodi gram panchayat Sarpanch Padamsingh, who later reached Bakargatta police station in the evening to inform about the wreckage.

Later, police teams from both states reached the spot, located about 17 km from nearest roadhead at Karatola village, at around 1025 hours today.

The chopper, carrying Captain A S Siddu, pilot Vikram Savekar, technician Manish Badonia and aviation engineer Amitabh Soni, took off from Bhopal at around 1150 hours on July 14 and lost contact with Air Traffic Control (ATC) within half an hour.

UNI