New Delhi: An Indian Air Force Mi-17V5 helicopter carrying Chief of Defense Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika, senior officers and Air Force pilots crashed in the Nilgiri hills of Coonoor district in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, killing 13 people. .
IAF confirmed in a tweet that General Rawat His wife and 11 others were killed in the accident.
This was not the first time Rawat had crashed. single engined helicopter carrying him accident in nagaland six years ago. Escaping with minor injuries, the then lieutenant general survived the fall.
Rawat was not lucky this time as his name was added to the long list of prominent Indians who lost their lives in air crashes.
From Congress leader Sanjay Gandhi to industrialist OP Jindal, here are some famous personalities who died in air crashes in independent India.
Read also: About the Mi-17V-5 helicopter that crashed with the CDS Bipin Rawat riding
Mohan Kumaramangalam: Congress leader and The former Lok Sabha MP died when an Indian Airlines flight crashed in Delhi on May 31, 1973. He was then 56 years old.
Sanjay Gandhi: The Congress leader, himself a pilot, died in an air crash in Delhi in June 1980. Pitts, the youngest son of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, was flying the S-2A plane that crashed.
Surendra Nath: The then Governor of Punjab was traveling from Chandigarh to Kullu in a 14-seater Beechcraft plane when it crashed in Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district on July 9, 1994. The 68-year-old former IPS officer died along with nine of his family members.
Madhavrao Scindia: Senior Congressman Scindia was flying to Kanpur when his chartered flight crashed in a village in Uttar Pradesh in September 2001. Scindia, the father of the current Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, was only 56 years old at that time.
GMC Balayogi: Balayogi, Lok Sabha Speaker and leader of the Telugu Desam Party, died in a helicopter crash in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh on 3 March 2002.
YS Rajasekhara Reddy: Then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy died in September 2009 when a twin-engine Bell 430 helicopter was carrying him in the state’s Nallamala Hills.
Dorjee Khandu: Former Arunachal Pradesh CM Dorjee Khandu also died in the helicopter crash. The accident happened in May 2011, about 30 km from Tawang near the India-China border. His body was found five days later.
OP Jindal and Surendra Singh: Noted industrialist OP Jindal, who was then also Haryana’s power minister, was killed in a helicopter crash in 2005. He was on his way back to Chandigarh from Delhi with Surendra Singh, the then state agriculture minister and son of former CM Bansi Lal. He also died in the accident.
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