The recent crash of a Pawan Hans helicopter in Tawang district, in which Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu tragically lost his life, raises a host of concerns. It is just as well that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress president Sonia Gandhi have decided to visit the state on Friday to offer their condolences
and to send a message to the people of Arunachal Pradesh — and the region as a whole — that the Centre is alive to their needs, and is supportive of their aspirations. This was badly needed. The accident has triggered debates in public forums in Arunachal Pradesh that if the government at various levels had not been indifferent, the tragedy might even have been averted. No grounds should have been offered for politicising the issue.
After all, the story of helicopter crashes — both civilian and military helicopters — in different states of the region is noteworthy for the persistence of its occurrence. Just a week before the Pawan Hans machine carrying the chief minister and four others went down, another helicopter of the same company had crashed, killing 17 passengers. A Dornier — another small aircraft — had also crashed two days prior to that. Just about a year earlier, another Dornier carrying a number of Army officers had met with an accident, killing them all. There is the distinct impression that the companies which have been operating these aircraft have been less than transparent in holding inquiries, and providing answers to frequently asked questions. Two demands have been made on a regular basis by the people of the Northeast — that the aircraft which are flown in the region should have high capability to manoeuvre through the hills which characterise its terrain; and that airstrips be made longer and at locations where there is no danger of crashing into hills or mountains. These appear to be reasonable and legitimate demands, and they have been pressed for long. But there is no sign that anyone in authority has heard. It was the duty of the Union government and aircraft providers to have paid heed and responded with alacrity. In the specific case of the ill-fated flight of the Arunachal Pradesh chief minister, there is the added unhappiness in the state that several national-level outfits were a shade lackadaisical in conducting the search once it became clear that the helicopter had gone missing. As it turned out, the equipment employed proved inadequate and yielded no results. The wreckage was eventually found after five days by local villagers. Radical elements in the state have seized the chance to kick up an anti-India sentiment in a state that borders China. Unfavourable comparisons have been sought to be made with the effort put in to locate the wreckage of the aircraft that had crashed killing Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy in 2009. This is just plain mischief. The conditions for flying — especially in the Sela Pass belt — and for search and rescue operations at high altitude in the Tawang area are far more difficult and complex than in Andhra Pradesh. But common to both events is the impression that the two political leaders in question did not sufficiently heed the weather forecast warnings. To this, in the Arunachal Pradesh case, must be added the criminal negligence of flying single-engine instead of twin-engine aircraft.