Video Captures CDS Gen Bipin Rawat’s Helicopter Moments Before The Crash | Watch

Watch IAF MI 17V5 Helicopter Crash Video (As provided by locals): India's first CDS General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika & 11 other defence personnel died in a tragic helicopter crash at Tamil Nadu's Coonoor on December 8. A new video has emerged that shows the helicopter moments

New Delhi: A new 19-second video of CDS Gen Bipin Rawat’s helicopter Mi-17 V5 of the Indian Air Force moments before it crash landed in the hills of Conooor (Nilgiri Hills) has emerged. The IAF MI 17V5 Helicopter Crash Video, apparently shot by locals in the area, shows a group of people walking on a railway track and looking up at the chopper that was flying low. Soon after, the Mi-17 chopper disappeared into the thick cloud, the engine of the chopper went silent, possibly indicating the crash that killed the decorated officer, his wife and 11 other senior officials and staffers. The people in the video can be heard saying, “Can hear a silence of the rotors having stopped towards the end…what happened, has it crashed?”

Watch: IAF MI 17V5 Helicopter Crash Video

#Watch Video captures #CDS Gen #BipinRawat 's chopper moments before the #crash #HelicopterCrash pic.twitter.com/l2YowoTZMW

— India.com (@indiacom) December 9, 2021

India.Com can not verify the authenticity of the video as it has been provided by locals and passerby.

General Rawat, 63, was on his way to the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington where he was to deliver a lecture. His wife, president of the Defence Wives Welfare Association, was accompanying him along with members of the CDS staff. The crash happened at a distance of about 10 km from the helipad where it was to land. As per the latest report, the black box of the ill-fated helicopter has been recovered. Black Box normally provides the conversation and messages that were exchanged in the cockpit and is a tool to establish the sequence of events during a crash.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh will brief Parliament on the tragic accident that killed 13 of the 14 people onboard, including Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat, and his wife Madhulika Rawat. The other defence personnel killed in the crash included Brigadier L S Lidder, Lieutenant Colonel Harjinder Singh, Wing Commander PS Chauhan, Squadron Leader K Singh, JWO Das, JWO Pradeep A, Havildar Satpal, Naik Gursewak Singh, Naik Jitender Kumar, Lance Naik Vivek Kumar and Lance Naik Sai Teja. Group Captain Varun Singh, decorated with the Shaurya Chakra on Independence Day this year, was the lone survivor and is currently undergoing treatment for injuries at the Military Hospital in Wellington.

Videos and images from the crash site showed wreckage scattered on a hillside and rescuers struggling through smoke and fire to locate bodies. Charred bodies were pulled out from under mangled metal and fallen trees.

General Rawat took charge as India’s first Chief of Defence Staff in January 2020. The position was created to integrate Army, Navy and the Air Force. A former Army Chief, he was also appointed the head of the newly-created Department of Military Affairs.

The general joined the army as a second lieutenant in 1978 and had four decades of service behind him, having commanded forces in Jammu and Kashmir and along the Line of Actual Control bordering China.