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India’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat has died in a helicopter crash in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, the Indian air force said.
According to Indian media, Gen Rawat was India’s first chief of defence staff, a position that the government established in 2019.Modi.
The 63-year-old general was travelling with his wife and other senior officers in the Russian-made Mi-17 chopper, which crashed near its destination in Tamil Nadu.
“Gen Bipin Rawat was on a visit to Defence Services Staff College, Wellington (Nilgiri Hills) to address the faculty and student officers of the staff course today,” the Indian Air Force (IAF) said on Twitter.
“Around noon, an IAF Mi-17 V5 helicopter with a crew of four members carrying the CDS and nine other passengers met with a tragic accident near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu,” the statement said.
The IAF said that it had been ascertained that Gen Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 other persons on board had died in the accident.
“Group Captain Varun Singh SC […] with injuries is currently under treatment at Military Hospital, Wellington,” the statement said.
Footage from the scene showed a crowd of people trying to extinguish the fiery wreck with water buckets while a group of soldiers carried one of the passengers away on an improvised stretcher.
Pakistan’s military leadership has condoled the death of Indian Chief of Defence Staff.
Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee Lt Gen Nadeem Raza and Chief of the Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa also offered their condolences on Gen Rawat’s “tragic death” and the loss of precious lives.
The Mi-17 helicopter, which first entered service in the 1970s and is in wide use by defence services around the world, has been involved in a number of accidents over the years.
Fourteen people died in a crash last month when an Azerbaijani military Mi-17 chopper went down during a training flight.
In 2019, four Indonesian soldiers were killed and five others wounded in central Java in another training accident involving the aircraft.
CDS General Bipin Rawat was the highest-serving official in the Indian armed forces, who was appointed to the newly created post of CDS, a day before he was set to retire as the army chief on December 31, 2019. As part of his new assignment, Gen Rawat was heading the new Department of Military Affairs in the Defence Ministry.
In Dec 2015, the Modi government had appointed Gen Rawat as the army chief by superseding two senior officers.
