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Helicopter with minister missing in Arunachal Pradesh

Official sources in the state capital said the Pawan Hans chopper, on a special flight, took off from Itanagar at 1100 hours (IST) for Rupa in West Kameng district and Seppa in East Kameng district and was scheduled to return at 1600 hours.

However, the helicopter lost contact with Tejpur ground station at around 1115 hours after pilot Capt V K Dhir had informed it about wanting a change of route apparently because of clouds and rains.

Besides Natung, the other passengers of the chopper were Deputy Secretary in the Union Human Resources Development Ministry S K Jain, state Education Secretary Sange Lhaden, Times of India group official Nandita Judge and senior representative of the Art of Living Foundation Nityanand Trihan, the sources said.

The state government came to know about the disappearance of the chopper after receiving a report from Rupa that the helicopter did not land there as scheduled, they said.

Captain V K Dhir and captain R K Singh were the pilot and co-pilot.

Indian Air Force personnel from Tezpur in Assam carried out a recee mission but failed to locate the helicopter. A fresh search operation would be launched on Wednesday, official sources said.

Search teams had been sent to look for the helicopter and a high alert has been sounded across the state, they added.

In 1998, Minister of State for Defence N V M Somu was killed when an IAF helicopter crashed over snow-capped mountains in Arunachal Pradesh.

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