Army copter crashes, 3 killed

New Delhi: Two Army pilots and a technician were killed when a Cheetah helicopter crashed this afternoon near Nashik. The two officers, Major Rohit Yadav and Major S Chakravarty, both qualified pilots, and their technician Gopi Birlangi, were on a training sortie at the Combat Aviation Training School (CATS) in Nashik.
“Preliminary indicators suggest technical failure owing to rotor damage, an inquiry has been ordered,” the army said today.
Ironically, a full-fledged Rs 1.87-crore Cheetah helicopter simulator was set up at the training school at Nashik just 10 months ago with the precise purpose of reducing the risks and cost of training rookie pilots, though the two pilots killed today were both training as flying instructors and had already clocked 450 flying hours each.
Today’s crash comes a day after a young IAF pilot bailed out of his MiG-29 fighter near Ambala.
29/09/06 Indian Express

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