Photo: Vaibhav78545 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
A helicopter carrying six people, a pilot and five passengers, came down near Joshimath in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district on Friday afternoon (October 30) while flying from Badrinath to Dehradun, state officials said. Rescue teams were struggling to reach the area through rain and low cloud, and there was no official word on the condition of those on board by late afternoon.
Lost from tracking over the valley
According to the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA), the chopper, operated by Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt. Ltd. with the call sign VT-HCX, took off from Badrinath at about 1.14 pm for the Sahastradhara heliport in Dehradun. It stopped showing on the authority’s tracking system as it crossed the Joshimath valley, and communication was lost at around 2.20 pm.
Police in Joshimath said they were alerted by the local sub-divisional magistrate at 2.21 pm about a crash landing above Chai village, and that UCADA’s data placed the helicopter near an Army camp in that area. District officials said smoke was seen rising near the village after the aircraft disappeared. Disaster management officials said it had hit a hillside near the JP Power House close to Marwari Bridge.
Senior officials were still cautious. Garhwal Commissioner Anand Swaroop said a crash had not yet been confirmed and the helicopter was officially listed as missing. He said it was a chartered flight that had been booked privately.
Who was on board
The passenger manifest lists Captain Himanshu as the pilot. UCADA said the five passengers, all men, are reported to be residents of Bengaluru, and that their details are still being verified. It was not immediately clear whether the group had been visiting the Badrinath shrine.
Teams from the Chamoli administration, police, the State Disaster Response Force, the Army and the ITBP have been sent towards the site. UCADA chief executive Prateek Jain said another helicopter would be flown in to search as soon as the weather cleared. As a precaution, the authority has grounded Trans Bharat Aviation’s entire fleet.
I am personally monitoring the situation closely. I have issued instructions to ensure that those who are critically injured are immediately airlifted to a higher-level medical facility.
Pushkar Singh Dhami, Uttarakhand Chief Minister
Weather and a troubled safety record
The flight took off on a day when the India Meteorological Department had put Chamoli under an orange alert, warning of thunderstorms, lightning, hail and gusty winds, with rain and snow likely along the Badrinath-Joshimath stretch. Kedarnath saw the season’s first heavy snowfall on Thursday. The cause of the incident has not been established.
Helicopters have become a popular way for pilgrims to reach the Char Dham shrines, but the hill routes have seen repeated accidents. Seven people were killed when a pilgrim helicopter crashed near Kedarnath in June 2025, and seven died on the same route in October 2022. A string of incidents in the 2025 season led aviation authorities to tighten safety checks and restrict some operations.
What happens next
Officials said further details would be released once rescuers reach the site and the status of the six people is confirmed. An inquiry into the cause is expected, and the grounding of the operator’s fleet will remain in place in the meantime. More rain is forecast in the state’s hill districts over the next few days.
