Naval helicopter crashes near Vishakhapatnam, 2 missing

[selvan33]

VISAKHAPATNAM: A chopper of the Indian Navy crashed near Vishakhapatnam on Tuesday evening.

According to reports, the Chetak helicopter had four people on board.

While two people have been rescued, search operations for the remaining missing persons are on.

Naval helicopter crashes near Vishakhapatnam, 2 missing - The Times of India

 

[Parul]

I pray and hope that the Missing can be Rescued too and there is no casuailty.

 

[Imran Khan]

hope they fine . damn helicopters have no escape

 

[Windjammer]

Navy helicopter crashes near Vizag, two personnel missing
New Delhi, Mar 5, 2013 (PTI)

A naval helicopter, with four personnel on board, crashed off the Vishakhapatnam harbour today.

Two crew members were immediately rescued while two others were missing and a search was underway for them, Navy officials said here.

The Chetak helicopter crashed at around 1500 hours during a routine training sortie, they said.

Navy has pressed into service its helicopters and ships to search for the missing personnel, they said.

The Navy has ordered a Board of Inquiry to investigate the reasons behind the crash of the light utility chopper, they said.

The Cheetah and Chetak choppers are the vintage of the 60s and the 70s and are the mainstay of the armed forces for ferrying small groups of personnel and light loads.
The Navy has already initiated the process for acquiring 56 new light choppers with twin-engines for replacing the vintage choppers.

The IAF and the Army are also in the process of replacing their fleet of such choppers.
In a similar crash in October last year in Panaji, three naval personnel including two pilots had died when their machine crashed at the Dabolim airport while landing there.

Before that incident, a Navy light helicopter crashed in 2005 when a chopper from Goa met with the accident near Belgaum in Karnataka on its way to Vishakhapatnam.

Navy helicopter crashes near Vizag, two personnel missing

 

[IndoUS]

Hope they find the other two, and I sincerely wish the navy and MoD takes notice of such incident and start to pick up the pace of acquiring new helicopter and retiring the older ones.

 

[Green Angel]

Sad News............What was happened to the helicopter...and they have rescued 2 missing persons or not.

 

[ejaz007]

Indian Navy Chetak Helicopter Crashes in Sea


NEW DELHI — Two crew members were missing Tuesday after an Indian naval helicopter crashed into the sea off the country’s southeastern coast, sparking an air-sea rescue search, a navy spokesman said.

The military helicopter took off from the city of Visakhapatnam and lost contact with air controllers after flying 18 kilometers (11 miles) from its base, Commander D.K. Sharma told AFP in New Delhi.

“We have rescued two of the crew and are looking for the remaining two in the sea,” Sharma said.

The helicopter lost contact with military air controllers in mid-afternoon.

“Ships and aircraft have joined the search,” an official said.

Naval officials initially said the helicopter was of Russian design but later said the Chetak helicopter was produced in India by state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. The navy said it would continue the search operation even though darkness had fallen over the area.

“The search will continue until we find the wreckage of the helicopter and the two remaining crew members,” the officer said.

He said the two rescued crew members were unhurt.

Another Indian Navy official said a court of enquiry has been ordered into the crash, which occurred when the helicopter was on a “routine flying mission.”

India has witnessed at least two other military helicopter crashes in the past year. Last October, three naval personnel, including two pilots, died when their Chetak helicopter crashed while landing at Dabolim airport in Panaji, capital of the western Indian tourist state of Goa. In August, nine Indian air force personnel were killed when two Russian-designed military helicopters collided in mid-air over a firing range in the western state of Gujarat.

India plans to buy as many as 400 helicopters, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, to replace its aging aircraft fleet.


Indian Navy Chetak Helicopter Crashes in Sea | Defense News | defensenews.com

 

[Pandora]

hope they fine . damn helicopters have no escape

If there is no way up to eject then we need to a design a seat with a downward ejection system

 

[Imran Khan]

If there is no way up to eject then we need to a design a seat with a downward ejection system

choppers start getting it sir jee ka-52 and MI-28 are already with ejection seats .

 

[Pandora]

choppers start getting it sir jee ka-52 and MI-28 are already with ejection seats .

I dont know much about helicopters but arent those used for atack. I was thinking about transport as usually they go down badly.

 

[Windjammer]

Navy recovers two bodies from chopper wreckage off Vizag coast

Visakhapatnam, Mar 9 (PTI):

Almost four days after a Naval helicopter, with four crew members on board, crashed into the sea off Vizag coast in Andhra Pradesh, the rescue teams today retrieved bodies of a Lieutenant Commander and a sailor from the wreckage landed at the depth of 60 metres.

The deceased were identified as Lieutenant Commander Pranav Likithi and sailor G S Sen, according to a release by the Eastern Naval Command. Two other crew members had been rescued earlier and are recuperating at Naval hospital INHS Kalyani.

The Chetak 440 helicopter crashed into the sea about 10 nautical miles off Visakhapatnam coast on Tuesday afternoon, soon after it took off from INS Dega at about 2 p.m. on a routine mission.

The rescue teams last night spotted the debris, strewn at a depth of 60 metres, along with the two bodies, at a distance of 8 miles south of Dolphin Light House, the release said.

The bodies were retrieved in the early hours today by the joint rescue teams.
Soon after the crash, an extensive search and rescue operation was launched from the sea and air by the Navy, along with the Coast Guard, Port authorities and Marine Police.

The Navy had already ordered a Board of Inquiry to establish the cause of the accident.

A multi-purpose offshore chartered vessel 'Olympic Canyon' was also roped in with its Remote Operating Vehicle for the salvaging operations.
Meanwhile, bodies of Likithi and Sen were sent for postmortem at state-run King George Hospital, the release said.

Navy recovers two bodies from chopper wreckage off Vizag coast

R.I.P