India/Itanagar: A chopper carrying Arunanchal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu and four other passengers from Tawang went missing soon after take-off at around 10:20 am this morning. Chief Minister was flying to Itanagar and was scheduled to land at 11:30am.
He was accompanied by two of his personal aides. The chopper got vanished at Sela Pass around twenty minutes after it took-off, DIG Shillong told the reporters. The air force team has started search operations to locate the missing chopper. 56-year-old Khandu, who had served in the intelligence wing of the Indian Army, was sworn on April 9, 2007 as the fifth chief minister of the state, replacing Gegong Apang.
This is the third helicopter to get into trouble in the Northeast in the last fortnight. In the April 19 incident, a Pawan Hans helicopter crashed in the mountains of Tawang, bordering Tibet, killing all 17 people onboard. The helicopter crashed not far away from the helipad and the DGCA had found that proper firefighting facilities could have saved lives.
The chopper was a Eurocopter B-3 and was just 4-5 months old. It was based in Itanagar.
