Co-pilot killed as Army chopper crashes in Gurez

A Cheetah helicopter of the Indian Army crashed in Kashmir’s Gurez sector on Friday, killing one of its pilots. The other pilot is being treated at the 92 Base Hospital in Srinagar.

The Army said in a statement that the helicopter “crashed in Baraub area of Gurez in Bandipora district this afternoon, while on a routine mission to evacuate an ailing soldier from a forward post”.

The helicopter, the Army said, “lost communication with the forward post at Gujran, Baraub”. A search operation on foot was immediately launched by the Indian Army alongside search and rescue helicopters which were pressed into service, and the “wreckage of the helicopter was found in a snow-bound Gujran Nallah area of North Kashmir’s Bandipora.”