IAF helicopter makes emergency landing

An Apache attack Indian Air Force helicopter made an emergency landing on Friday at Haleda village in Pathankot near the Punjab-Himachal Pradesh border. The crew members are safe and there was no damage to the aircraft, confirmed senior superintendent of police Daljinder Singh Dhillon.

As per initial reports, the helicopter took off from the Pathankot Air Force Station.

The exact cause of the incident is still under investigation, though sources did not rule out the possibility of a scheduled emergency drill or training exercise. On June 6, another Apache helicopter had made an emergency landing in a field near Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh after its pilots received a technical snag warning on their flying panel in the cockpit. Last year in April, an Apache was badly damaged when it made a hard landing near Khardung La in Ladakh during an operational sortie. IAF inducted 22 of the Boeing-manufactured Apache helicopters in 2019-2020 under the Rs 13,952 crore deal inked with the US in Sept 2015.