Dehradun, Oct 30 (IANS) Five passengers and the pilot were killed as a helicopter, on its way from Badrinath to Sahastradhara, crashed near Chai village close to Joshimath in Uttarakhand on Friday, officials said. The bodies of all six individuals, including the pilot, have been recovered from the crash site by joint teams of the Uttarakhand Police, the State Disaster Response Force, and the Army, which swung into action for rescue and recovery operations after receiving the news of the accident. The operation to transport all the bodies from the difficult-to-access crash site to a location connected by road is underway, officials said.

The pilot of the helicopter, operated by a private aviation company, was identified as Capt. Himanshu Sabharwal, while the passengers were Prathapa, Arun, Shankar Gowda, Sudheer K., and H.S. Natraja, all from Karnataka, police said. There were no women or children on board the helicopter, officials said. Addressing the media earlier, Chamoli Superintendent of Police Surjeet Singh Panwar said: "One helicopter belonging to 'Trans Bharat Aviation' took off from the Badrinath Civil Helipad for the Sahastradhara Helipad at approximately 1.12 p.m. At around 1.14 p.m., contact with the aircraft was lost near Joshimath."

"Local personnel stationed in the nearby area reported that the helicopter was seen heading into a valley below while flying at a considerable height," he said. "The helicopter's pilot was Himanshu Sabharwal, a resident of Delhi, along with five passengers from Karnataka. Efforts are being made to locate them and gather complete information regarding their whereabouts." According to the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCDA), the helicopter lost communication when it was flying over Joshimath valley.

"At the same time, the tracking system could no longer track the helicopter, and its current location has not been ascertained yet," an official statement said. "Immediately upon receiving information about the incident, teams from the Indian Army, District Administration, Chamoli, and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) have been mobilised and dispatched to initiate search and rescue operations," it added.

Further, the entire fleet of M/s Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt. Ltd. has been grounded as a precautionary measure, the UCDA said. Meanwhile, senior Congress leader and former Uttarakhand Chief Minister Harish Rawat sought an inquiry into multiple helicopter crashes reported from the state in recent years. "This is deeply painful...Along with making our helicopter services competitive, we also need to make them safe and secure. An inquiry will be conducted, and improvements will be made based on the probe, but this is extremely necessary because one after another, such incidents are happening, which is alarming," he told reporters.

--IANS