The flight data recorder of the military helicopter that crashed in a wooded, hilly area near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu killing India’s first Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat and 12 others was retrieved on Thursday.
As Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said in a statement in Parliament that an inquiry was already underway and the lone survivor was on life support, in Wellington, not far from the crash site, bugles sounded the last post to honour those who had been killed.
The mortal remains of the victims in caskets wrapped in the Indian tricolour were taken to the Madras Regimental Centre at Wellington in decorated army trucks. Senior Army officials, Tamil Nadu ministers and Army veterans laid wreaths and paid floral tributes.
