Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife and 11 other army officials were killed after IAF Mi-17V5 helicopter carrying them crashed into a heavily wooded area of the Coonoor ghat in the Nilgiris in western Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
Now, a video allegedly shot just a few seconds before the chopper crash is going viral on the social media.
The video, tweeted by news agency ANI and sourced from locals, apparently captures the last moments of the Mi-17 V5 chopper before it crashed into the Nilgiris yesterday afternoon. It shows the chopper flying into a mist.
The chopper took off at 11.47 am from Sulur and was heading to Wellington when it crashed at 12.20 am about 5-10 km and five minutes from the landing site.
Gen Rawat was scheduled to address an event at the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington when the crash took place.
The crash site is five km from Coonoor bus stand--a down slide leading to the valley on the left of the bus stand. It is a very thick forested area and accessibility is very very difficult, said eyewitnesses, adding that one of the blades hit a tree following which the chopper crashed and exploded.
One of the eyewitnesses, a resident of Katteri, said he came rushing out after hearing a loud sound. "I ran out and saw the chopper plunging steeply into the valley below, before it hit a tree and crashed,” he said.
“As the fire was too big, we couldn’t approach [the site],” he said. (Inputs from Agencies)
