THE toll in the Army helicopter crash in Arunachal Pradesh rose to five with the body of the last missing personnel recovered on Saturday, a defence spokesperson said. The advanced light helicopter (ALH), carrying five Army personnel including two pilots, was on regular sorties when it crashed at 10.43 am on Friday near Migging, around 25 km south of Tuting, he said. The bodies of the four other personnel were recovered on Friday evening from the crash site in a densely wooded mountainous area, around 35 km from the border with China, defence spokesperson Lt Col A S Walia said.

 

The deceased Army personnel were identified as pilots Major Vikas Bhambhu and Major Mustafa Bohara, CFN Tech AVN (AEN) Aswin K V, Havildar (OPR) Biresh Sinha and NK (Ppr) Rohitashva Kumar, he said. “It is reported that the weather was good for flying operations. The pilots had more than 600 combined flying hours on ALH-WSI and over 1,800 service flying hours between them. The aircraft was inducted into service in June 2015,” Lt Col Walia said.