Close on the heels of Mirage 2000 trainer aircraft crashing on Friday killing two Indian Air Force officers, attack helicopter Rudra belonging to the Army Aviation Corps made a precautionary landing, reportedly due to a technical snag.
There was no official information on the episode till going to the press.
Pilot safe
The pilot, identified as Ramesh by the police, is safe. Following an alert, a technical support team rushed to rectify the helicopter. They flew it back by late evening to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s Helicopter Division, said a spokesperson of the defence PSU.
The spokesperson for HAL, which has developed Rudra and is building a few more helicopters for the Army and the Air Force, said, “According to our information it was a precautionary landing.”
The helicopter was on a sortie as part of acceptance trials, according to Army sources.
Fan not working
The incident occurred around 1 p.m., said Kaggalipura police, when the pilot noticed that the fan of the chopper was not working, and alerted the control room before landing in a field.
The chopper is the weaponised Mk IV version of the Indian light copter ALH, customised for the Army’s air wing and has been in service since 2013.