NDRF and SDRF personnel at the spot after a helicopter crashed near the Kedarnath shrine, in Uttarakhand, Sunday, June 15, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI
The latest helicopter crash in Uttarakhand — which claimed seven lives, among them a two-year-old child, during a Kedarnath pilgrimage flight — adds yet another tragic entry to the State’s already long record as a hotbed of helicopter disasters.
Within a brief window of barely two months, the latest is the State’s fifth helicopter accident. In May this year, six passengers en route to Gangotri Temple were killed when their aircraft crashed in Uttarkashi district. Reports reveal that the same month witnessed two further incidents — one, a near-catastrophe narrowly avoided in Badrinath, and the other, an AIIMS air-ambulance crash that, fortunately, caused no fatalities — while, more recently in June, a Kedarnath-bound chopper was forced into an emergency landing after a technical snag, highlighting a recurrent aviation crisis in the region.
This spate recalls October 2022, when three separate helicopter accidents claimed 13 lives. Two of those tragedies struck defence helicopters operating in Arunachal Pradesh, and on October 18 that year, a commercial chopper ferrying Kedarnath pilgrims crashed, killing all seven people aboard.
A conservative analysis of incident summaries filed with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau indicates that at least 14 helicopters — many assigned to ferry pilgrims within Uttarakhand’s rugged terrain — crashed between 1990 and 2023.
The map plots the approximate departure or intended landing sites for 75 commercial helicopters lost during that period, revealing a concentration of accidents in north-eastern hills as well.
In the 1990 and 2023 period, 165 people lost their lives in accidents involving commercial helicopters, as shown in the chart. In these incidents, 126 people were injured, too.
Following the latest tragedy, police have charged two senior officials of Aryan Aviation Pvt. Ltd. — the operator of the crashed helicopter — with alleged negligence. Notably, the company also owned the Kedarnath-bound chopper that went down in October 2022, killing seven, and another aircraft that crashed in 2019 after striking an overhead cable.
Operating choppers in harsh weather — whether anticipated or sudden — ranks as the third-most frequent cause of helicopter mishaps in the 1990-2023 period.
Pilot error or improper handling remains the leading factor, with inadequate maintenance close behind. Other recurring causes include non-adherence to flight rules by crew, technical faults, and entangled with cables (where a helicopter gets entangled in wires/cables used by locals in mountainous regions to transport goods). The chart shows the reasons behind accidents in the period.
Moreover, the majority of commercial-helicopter accidents occurred in broad daylight, with most such crashes taking place while the copters were cruising. The chart shows the time of occurrence of fatal commercial helicopter accidents
A significant share of accidents also happened during the landing phase, whereas take-off or climb proved to be the safest portions of the journey, registering the fewest accidents in the period, as depicted in the chart below.
While it is true that, when analysed over time, the overall number of helicopter-related accidents in India has declined, the recent spate of crashes in Uttarakhand is a grim reminder that such tragedies continue to occur, cutting short lives. It should also be noted that in the recent safety audit by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, India had improved its “effective implementation” score to over 85% from the previously low score of 70%.
Compiled by B Renuka Ramakrishna, Safa Salsabeel Z, Niranjana VB, and Manaswini Vijayakumar who are interning with The Hindu Data Team
Source: The data were sourced from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau
Published – June 20, 2025 07:00 am IST