Dehradun, October 30, 2026 (Yes Punjab News)
Five passengers and the pilot were killed when a helicopter travelling from Badrinath to Sahastradhara crashed near Chai village, close to Joshimath in Uttarakhand, on Friday, officials said.
The bodies of all six victims, including the pilot, have been recovered from the crash site by joint teams of the Uttarakhand Police, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and the Army. The teams launched rescue and recovery operations after receiving information about the accident.
Efforts are underway to transport the bodies from the difficult-to-access crash site to a location connected by road, officials said.
Police identified the pilot as Capt. Himanshu Sabharwal, who was operating the helicopter belonging to private aviation company Trans Bharat Aviation. The five passengers were identified as Prathapa, Arun, Shankar Gowda, Sudheer K. and H.S. Natraja, all from Karnataka.
Officials confirmed that no women or children were on board.
Earlier, Chamoli Superintendent of Police Surjeet Singh Panwar told reporters that the helicopter had departed from the Badrinath Civil Helipad for the Sahastradhara Helipad at around 1.12 p.m. Contact with the aircraft was lost near Joshimath approximately two minutes later.
“Local personnel stationed in the nearby area reported that the helicopter was seen heading into a valley below while flying at a considerable height,” he said.
Panwar said the pilot was Himanshu Sabharwal, a resident of Delhi, and the five passengers were from Karnataka. At the time, efforts were underway to locate the helicopter and establish the whereabouts of those on board.
According to the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCDA), communication with the helicopter was lost while it was flying over Joshimath valley.
“At the same time, the tracking system could no longer track the helicopter, and its current location has not been ascertained yet,” an official statement said.
The statement added that teams from the Indian Army, Chamoli district administration and SDRF were immediately mobilised and dispatched to conduct search and rescue operations after information about the incident was received.
As a precautionary measure, the entire fleet of Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt. Ltd. has been grounded, the UCDA said.
Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat called for an inquiry into the multiple helicopter crashes reported in the state in recent years.
“This is deeply painful… Along with making our helicopter services competitive, we also need to make them safe and secure. An inquiry will be conducted, and improvements will be made based on the probe, but this is extremely necessary because one after another, such incidents are happening, which is alarming,” Rawat told reporters.
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