Joshimath helicopter crash: All six on board killed, AAIB to probe

All six people on board were killed in the Joshimath helicopter crash in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Friday (30 October), officials said. The dead are the pilot, Captain Himanshu Sabharwal from Delhi, and five pilgrims from Karnataka.

The helicopter, operated by private firm Trans Bharat Aviation, was flying from Badrinath to the Sahastradhara helipad in Dehradun. Chamoli Superintendent of Police Surjeet Singh Panwar said contact with it was lost near Joshimath shortly after it took off from the Badrinath helipad. Bad weather may have caused the crash, according to preliminary reports. Our earlier report on the crash is linked in the sources below.

“The wreckage was located near an Army camp above Chai village. An Army team reached the spot and confirmed the fatalities,” Chamoli District Magistrate Gaurav Kumar said.

Joint teams of the Uttarakhand Police, the State Disaster Response Force and the Army recovered all six bodies from the hard-to-reach site. The Karnataka State Disaster Management Authority said the bodies were being taken to Joshimath for post-mortem, and that Karnataka officials were working with Uttarakhand to bring them home.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) will probe the crash, and its team has already left for the site, a senior official told PTI.

Prateek Jain, chief executive of the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority, said Trans Bharat Aviation’s entire helicopter fleet had been grounded as a precaution. “Officials from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) are likely to reach Dehradun to assess the incident. A comprehensive probe will be undertaken to establish the circumstances that led to the accident,” he said.

Jain added that the region had seen snow and rain over the past few days, but helicopters were allowed to fly only when the weather was favourable.

Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has ordered a detailed investigation and told the district administration to give every possible help to the victims’ families.

The crash adds to a worrying record on the Char Dham routes. In a report released earlier this month, the AAIB counted eight accidents and one serious incident in the Char Dham sector between 2015 and 2025, and said most of the accidents were due to the flight crew not following standard operating procedures.