Three officers had a miraculous escape after an Indian Army Cheetah helicopter reportedly met with an accident on May 20, Wednesday, in the Ladakh sector. The incident gained the attention of the nation after a selfie of the three personnel involved alongside the wreckage of the helicopter appeared on the internet. Meanwhile, a Court of Inquiry (CoI) has been ordered into the incident.
The crash occurred in the mountainous Tangtse region near Leh in Ladakh whilst carrying a Lieutenant Colonel, a Major, and a Major General, NDTV said in a report. Major General Sachin Mehta, the General Officer Commanding of the 3rd Infantry Division, was on board as a passenger when the accident happened, the report added.
The incident comes at a time when the Cheetah fleet is being gradually phased out from service. The choppers, which have been in service for decades, are being replaced by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's (HAL) Light Utility Helicopter (LUH), the NDTV report said.
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Cheetah helicopters, used by India's forces since the 1970s, were an integral part of Operation Meghdoot in 1984 when the country engaged Pakistan on the Siachen Glacier. Here are five things to know about the Cheetah choppers that form an illustrious part of the country's military history:
1. The HAL Cheetah is a licence-built version of the French Aérospatiale SA 315B Lama. India modified and upgraded it for military needs after it was initially designed as a lightweight helicopter capable of flying in the Himalayas and hot plains. The air is thinner at higher altitudes, which makes flying challenging, and the Cheetahs were reportedly designed to handle those “hot and high” conditions.
2. The Cheetahs have served different roles; from spotting enemy artillery guns to acting as air ambulances, they have served as a lifeline for Indian forces in Siachen, Ladakh and other high-altitude regions. Some reports mention them as the "flying jeep" of the Indian forces when not acting as a postal van or an aerial reconnaissance medium. Whilst the official service ceiling of these light birds is around 20,992 feet, Indian military Cheetahs have reportedly operated at 24,000+ feet in support of troops. These are heights that even eagles cannot attain! Over the decades, they have regularly supplied Sonam, Ashok, and Bana Top, located at altitudes between 19,600 and 21,000 feet.
3. Despite the difficulties of handling helicopters at such high altitudes, the pilots of the Indian Armed Forces often expertly land them on "tabletop" helipads on some of the highest ridge lines. As per the HAL website, the helicopter is powered by an Artouste-IIIB turboshaft engine.
4. Thousands of Indian and Nepalese lives have been saved over the decades by Cheetahs, which are capable of slinging underslung loads of up to 1,000 kg to places where a much more powerful medium helicopter could not venture. Its successor, the three-ton class LUH, features a digital glass cockpit and is driven by the powerful Shakti-1U engine, designed specifically to assume the Cheetah's high-altitude mantle.
5. According to reports, in order to boost performance in the Ladakh region, HAL developed an upgraded variant called the Cheetal. To date, HAL has produced and sold more than 275 of these versatile helicopters, which are in service both in India and abroad. Recently, HAL also received orders for Cheetah helicopters from the MoD of Namibia.