Six killed as Trans Bharat Aviation helicopter crashes near Joshimath in Uttarakhand

All six people on board a Trans Bharat Aviation helicopter, five passengers and the pilot, were killed when it crashed in the Hathi Parvat area of Joshimath in Chamoli district, Uttarakhand, on Friday afternoon, 30 October, per The Indian Express and The Times of India. This piece is as of the evening of 31 October. The victims are not named here.

What happened

The Indian Express says the helicopter was travelling from Shri Badrinath Dham to the Sahastradhara helipad in Dehradun when it crashed at around 2 pm. It quotes Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) CEO Prateek Jain as saying it departed Badrinath at 1:14 pm and could not be traced; The Times of India quotes an official source as saying it left at 1:12 pm and contact was lost at 1:14 pm. The Times of India says an Army Signal Centre team saw smoke rising from the helicopter as it lost altitude rapidly, and that the aircraft was a single-engine helicopter with registration VT-HCX. The Indian Express cites the Chamoli district administration's report as saying the helicopter encountered "adverse weather conditions" in the Hathi Parvat area while descending, and says the India Meteorological Department had issued an orange alert for Chamoli for 30 October.

Where the passengers were from

The Times of India says the five passengers were from Bengaluru, while The New Indian Express describes them as pilgrims from Karnataka; The Indian Express identification of the dead gives hometowns in more than one Karnataka district. The Indian Express says friends told it the group had planned the Char Dham pilgrimage together.

Cause and response

The Indian Express says the precise circumstances are under investigation and that the state grounded the operator's entire fleet; The Times of India says aviation authorities did. The Times of India quotes Jain as saying two other helicopters had flown the same route earlier, that the cause could be a pocket of cloud or a mechanical failure but would be established only after an investigation, and that the DGCA had been informed. Hindustan Times, in an item that restates a statement from his office, says Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami directed officials to investigate all aspects of the accident and to ensure families receive assistance, and that his statement did not specify the cause or any financial assistance. The New Indian Express says teams from the Army, ITBP, SDRF, NDRF, police and the Forest Department trekked to the site on Saturday, that recovery had been suspended on Friday because of darkness, wild animals and the terrain, that a DGCA team carried out an aerial survey and that an Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau team was expected to visit.

Background

Daily Excelsior says there have been at least five major helicopter accidents on the Char Dham circuit since 2017, and that a parliamentary standing committee report of 20 August 2025 highlighted risks to Himalayan helicopter services including difficult terrain, rapidly changing weather and the absence of mandatory terrain-specific mountain-flying training for pilots.