NEW DELHI: Three Indian Army officers, including a division commander, were injured after a Cheetah light helicopter crashed near Leh in Ladakh on Wednesday.
Sources said the helicopter was carrying 3 Division Commander Major General Sachin Mehta and two pilots when it met with the accident during an afternoon sortie in the Ladakh sector.
“All three personnel survived the crash and are in stable condition, sources added. The two pilots sustained minor injuries and were admitted to hospital for treatment,” the source said.
The Army has ordered a Court of Inquiry to ascertain the cause of the accident.
The helicopter involved in the crash was a Cheetal variant, an upgraded version of the Cheetah equipped with a more powerful TM333B engine designed to improve performance in extreme high-altitude conditions.
Derived from the French-origin Alouette III helicopter, the Cheetah-Cheetal family has served as a workhorse of Indian military aviation for decades, particularly in frontier regions such as Ladakh, Siachen and Arunachal Pradesh.
The latest accident has once again drawn attention to the ageing Cheetah-Cheetal fleet and long-standing concerns over its safety record.
In 2015, the Army Wives Agitation Group (AWAG), which had campaigned for the replacement of the helicopters, told then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar that 191 Cheetah and Chetak helicopters had crashed over the preceding three decades, resulting in 294 pilot fatalities.
The issue resurfaced in 2022 following a fatal Cheetah crash in Arunachal Pradesh. In a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, AWAG claimed that 31 military pilots had lost their lives in accidents involving Cheetah and Chetak helicopters since 2017 and urged the government to expedite the induction of replacement platforms.
Despite concerns over ageing airframes and maintenance challenges, the fleet is routinely used for reconnaissance, casualty evacuation, troop movement and logistics support to remote forward posts located at high altitudes where few other aircraft can operate effectively.
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited’s (HAL) Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) has been selected to replace the ageing Cheetah-Cheetal fleet. While the DAC (Defence Acquisition Council) approved procurement of 12 Limited Series Production LUHs in 2021, the transition to the new platform has progressed slower than anticipated, extending the operational life of the legacy fleet.
Earlier efforts to augment the fleet through the acquisition of Russian Ka-226T light helicopters also failed to materialise. The proposed India-Russia programme, which envisaged large-scale local production of the helicopters, remained stalled for years over cost, localisation and commercial issues before effectively slipping into limbo.