Lt Col Rajneesh Parmar of the Army’s Aviation Corps and Capt Kalzang Wangdi of the Royal Bhutanese Army were killed when the helicopter they were flying in crashed.

The Indian Army undertakes training of Bhutanese pilots and Lt Col Parmar was part of the Indian Army Training Team. The crash raises serious questions as the single-engine Cheetah copter is based on the 1950s-designed Alouette Aérospatiale 315B Lama of France.The Cheetah falls in the Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) category. A total 187 LUH are to be produced by the public sector giant Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) as per the existing plan. The Army will procure 126 copters and the IAF 61 from the HAL.

Overall in the light utility category, the three armed forces need 495 copters to replace the aging Cheetah fleet. The Army and IAF need 384 of them with 259 for the Army and 125 for IAF. — TNS

Palampur Lt Col dies in Bhutan crash on b’day

• Lt Col Rajneesh Parmar of Palampur in Himachal Pradesh was among two pilots killed—the other a Bhutanese—as a military training helicopter crashed in eastern Bhutan on Friday
• The single-engine Cheetah helicopter, which took off from Khirmu in Arunachal Pradesh, crashed around 1 pm in Yonphulla, said sources
• Incidentally, the crash occurred on the day Lt Col Rajneesh was celebrating his birthday
• Hailing from a defence background, he is survived by his parents, wife Reena Parmar (38) and son Yadhuvansh (12)
• His father Mukhtiar Parmar (67) retired from the Air Force while his younger brother, Lt Col Nikhil Parmar, is serving in the Army.