Chopper crash: Mortal remains of CDS Bipin Rawat, others to reach Delhi today

The mortal remains of those who died in the fatal helicopter crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu will be brought to Delhi today in an IAF planeThe mortal remains reached Sulur airbase earlier today from where they will be taken to Delhi Chief of Defence Staff CDS General Bipin Rawat his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others who were on board IAFs Mi17V5 helicopter died in the crash on December 8The last rites will be held in Delhi on Friday with military honours A funeral procession will start from Kamraj Marg to Brar Square crematorium in Delhi Cantonment on Friday The mortal remains were today brought to Madras Regimental Centre from Military Hospital Wellington in Nilgiris district People paid floral tribute to the deceasedAmong the attendees were Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin Governor of Telangana and Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan who paid floral tribute to General Rawat and others at Madras Regimental CentreThe government today ordered a tri service enquiry into the accident The enquiry will be headed by Air Marshal Manvendra Singh Air Officer CommandinginChief Training Command Informing about the timeline of the fatal crash Defence Minister Rajnath Singh in Lok Sabha said that the IAF chopper lost contact with the Sulur base control room at around 1208 pm after it took off at 1148 am from Sulur airbaseBoth Houses of the Parliament observed twominutes silence on the demise of 13 people A video of the IAFs helicopter flying in the air shot by locals has also surfaced that apparently shows its final moments before the crash Indian Air Force IAF chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari today reached the site ofthe crash The IAF said that it has recovered critical equipment of the helicopterMeanwhile Prime Minister Narendra Modi Defence Minister Rajnath Singh Union Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt and National Security Advisor NSA Ajit Doval are expected to pay tributes to the mortal remains of Chief of Defence Staff CDS General Bipin Rawat his wife and 11 other personnel at the Palam Technical Area on Thursday evening informed sourcesAccording to the sources the black box of the chopper has been recovered Meanwhile a team of the states Forensic Science Department also visited the crash site A total of 14 people were onboard the IAFs helicopter Group Captain Varun Singh is the lone survivor of the crash and is presently on life support in Military Hospital WellingtonThose who died in the crash include General Rawat his wife Madhulika Rawat his Defence Adviser Brigadier Lakhbinder Singh Lidder Staff Officer Lieutenant Colonel Harjinder Singh and nine other Armed Forces personnel including the Air Force helicopter crewAlso Read Tamil Nadu People shower flowers on ambulances carrying bodies of chopper crash victimsTheir names are Wing Commander Prithvi Singh Chauhan Squadron Leader Kuldeep Singh Junior Warrant Officer Rana Pratap Das Junior Warrant Officer Arakkal Pradeep Havildar Satpal Rai Naik Gursewak Singh Naik Jitendra Kumar Lance Naik Vivek Kumar Lance Naik B Sai TejaThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever