GAUHATI, May 1: Police and rescue teams from India and Bhutan searched their mountainous border on Sunday for a helicopter that vanished while transporting the chief minister of the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. The single-engine helicopter was carrying Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, two other passengers and two pilots when it disappeared in bad weather on Saturday just 20 minutes after taking off from the Himalayan Buddhist retreat of Tawang for the state capital, Itanagar.
“We are still hoping, but we are extremely worried because it has been a long time now since the helicopter disappeared over treacherous terrain in the high Himalayas,” Khandu’s aide Kiren Rijiju said. Temperatures overnight in the area were below freezing.
About 2,400 Indian army troops fanned out Sunday to search the forests along the border, while two Indian air force fighter planes often used in mapping also searched from the air before air operations were called off at dark on Sunday.
The aerial search is to resume on Monday, and officials hope the weather will be clear enough for air force helicopters to join the effort.
Beginning at dawn on Sunday in eastern Bhutan, “police along with local villagers have set out to locate the helicopter at mountain tops and grazing grounds,” while Buddhist monks were praying for divine intervention to help in locating the missing aircraft, said the country’s Tashiyangtse district deputy commissioner Sangay Duba.—AP
