An Air Force helicopter crashed in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu on Wednesday afternoon. Thirteen people, including the country's first CDS general Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat, were killed. The helicopter had 14 people on board. Only one of them, Group Captain Varun Singh, has survived. He is critically injured and is undergoing treatment. Meanwhile, this is not the first time that Bipin Rawat has been the victim of a helicopter crash. In 2015, he was briefly rescued from a helicopter crash.
The accident took place in Dimapur, Nagaland
The incident took place on February 3, 2015. Bipin Rawat was then a lieutenant general. At the time of the accident, Bipin Rawat was the head of the army's 3-core headquarters at Dimapur in Nagaland. Rawat had flown from Dimapur in his cheetah helicopter. However, as soon as the helicopter flew at some height, it lost control and crashed. But at that time, he survived the accident.
Speaking about the helicopter crash in 2015, the military had said that the engine of the helicopter failed when it went a few meters high after taking off from the ground. But no one was killed in the crash. The Air Force had conducted a high-level inquiry into the incident.
India's first Chief of Defence Staff, Gen Bipin Rawat, his wife, and 11 others were killed when their IAF Mi-17 helicopter crashed near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu's Nilgiris district on Wednesday, the IAF announced.The chopper, with a total of 14 persons on board, took off from the Sulur air base near Coimbatore and was on its way to Coonoor. When the chopper was a few minutes away from landing, it, as per eyewitnesses, hit a tree, crashed, and caught fire, resulting in several casualties.