A helicopter carrying Hindu pilgrims crashed in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, killing seven people on board, officials said.
The chopper was flying yesterday to Guptkashi, a prominent Hindu pilgrimage site in the Himalayas, from Kedarnath temple town, when it crashed.
The accident occurred within minutes after the helicopter took off, officials said, on what should have been a 10-minute flight.
The crash comes three days after an Air India flight fell from the sky and killed at least 270 people in Gujarat state.
The London-bound Boeing 787 struck a medical college hostel in a residential area of the northwestern city of Ahmedabad minutes after takeoff last Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 38 on the ground. One passenger survived.
Nandan Singh Rajwar, a local disaster management official, said authorities have launched a rescue and search operation and are expected to review operational protocols for flights in the region.
The helicopter, operated by Aryan Aviation, a private helicopter service company, went down in a forested area several kilometres from the Kedarnath pilgrimage route at around 5.30am local time. Officials said the crash was believed to have been caused by poor weather conditions.
Kedarnath is home to one of the four most sacred Hindu temple shrines and receives tens of thousands of pilgrims each year during the summer season, many of whom use helicopter services due to the difficult mountainous terrain.
Officials said the dead included the pilot and pilgrims from the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh and western states of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
The bodies were badly burned in a fire that followed the crash, they said. — AP
