Army helicopter crashes in Ladakh; 2 Majors among 3 soldiers killed

Jammu, Aug 16 (UNI) Two Army pilots and a jawan were killed in a helicopter crash in the mountaineous Eastern Ladakh area of Jammu and Kashmir, a Defence Ministry spokesman said today.

Army pilots, Major Padmanabhan and Major S Ganapathy of Leh-based squadron of Army Aviation Corps, died in the crash while returning from a rescue mission to evacuate a soldier yesterday, defence spokesman Lt Col S D Goswami told UNI.

The Cheetah copter, they were flying in, lost contact with the Air Traffic Control (ATC) while returning to Leh, he said.

The search mission was immediately launched but aborted due to bad weather.

However, during the aerial survey this morning, the crashed helicopter was found near a mountain pass.

''Both the pilots Major Padmanabhan and Major S Ganapathy and the Army Jawan Sepoy E Narsaih, who was being evacuated were killed in the accident,'' the spokesman said.

Army has instituted a court of inquiry to probe into the incident, he added.

UNI VJ SK KP1606