A helicopter carrying five pilgrims back from Badrinath, one of the four sacred sites on the Char Dham circuit, never completed the short hop down to Dehradun.
Chamoli Superintendent of Police Surjit Singh Panwar confirmed the deaths of all six people aboard. The aircraft came down on a hillside near Joshimath, in Uttarakhand’s Chamoli district, on Friday, Oct. 30, 2026.
The helicopter, registered VT-HCX and operated by Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt Ltd, lifted off from the temple town of Badrinath at about 1:14 p.m. on the return leg of a flight that had carried pilgrims to Badrinath Dham. Its destination was the Sahastradhara heliport in Dehradun. The crash was reported at roughly 2:20 p.m. near the Marwari Bridge, a short distance from the J.P. Power House, and searchers later found the wreckage near Chai village.
Cleared to Fly Under an Orange Alert
Prateek Jain, CEO of the Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA), said the helicopter had been cleared for takeoff after weather conditions were found favorable.
The India Meteorological Department had an orange alert in force for Chamoli that day, warning of thunderstorms with lightning, hail and gusty winds of 40-50 kmph. Forecasters also expected rain and snowfall along the Badrinath-Joshimath route.
Contact with the aircraft was lost at about 1:30 p.m. as it crossed the Joshimath valley, and its tracking system stopped showing its location.
The Six Who Did Not Return
The pilot, Himanshu Sabharwal, 48, lived in Shalimar Bagh in West Delhi. All five passengers were residents of Bengaluru.
A police inspector with the Bengaluru Police Crime Branch, Arun Salunke, 44, was among them, as was a lawyer, Shankargowda VB, 39. The other three were HS Nataraja, 51; Prathapa Bachihally Ningarajan, 41; and Sudheer K, 49.
An Army team from the 9 Independent Mountain Brigade climbed to the accident site at about 3:30 p.m. and confirmed all six deaths, according to the district disaster management officer.
Authorities sent up two more helicopters and drones to pinpoint the wreckage. Working the hillside together were the Chamoli district administration, police, the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the Army and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). Medical personnel also went to the area. Steady rain and low cloud cover cut visibility and made aerial surveillance difficult.
Teams moved as soon as officials got word of the crash, Chamoli District Magistrate Gaurav Kumar said. A joint operation had been launched with the district administration, the disaster management department and the SDRF, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said, and he instructed officials to airlift anyone critically injured to advanced medical facilities.
“I am continuously monitoring the entire incident,” Dhami said. According to the chief minister’s office, Disaster Management and Rehabilitation Minister Madan Kaushik joined Dhami in taking immediate cognizance of the crash, and the two directed officials to begin relief and rescue work without delay.
Panwar said all six bodies were recovered once the wreckage was located. The entire fleet of Trans Bharat Aviation was grounded by authorities as a precaution, and the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau will investigate. The exact cause has not been established, and investigators have yet to determine whether the weather or a technical issue contributed.
An AAIB team set out for the site via Pandukeshwar on Nov. 1, and one official fell ill on the difficult terrain and had to be carried out by the SDRF on Monday, Nov. 2. A Trans Bharat representative said another of the company’s helicopters left Badrinath about six minutes before the crashed aircraft and landed safely in Dehradun, and called a technical snag unlikely.
A Shortcut Past the Hardest Stretches
Badrinath is one of four sacred sites on the Char Dham pilgrimage circuit, along with Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri. The temples open only part of the year because of harsh winter conditions, and many devotees reach them by traveling through steep Himalayan valleys. Helicopter services have grown increasingly popular among pilgrims looking to avoid the hardest stretches.
The safety of those services has come under scrutiny after a series of accidents. Earlier in October 2026, two Char Dham helicopters made emergency landings, one in Rudraprayag because of weather and another in Tehri because of a technical problem. In June 2025, seven people died when a helicopter carrying pilgrims crashed near Kedarnath, and several other accidents that pilgrimage season led aviation authorities to tighten safety checks and restrict some operations. In October 2022, seven died in a crash near Garud Chatti on the Kedarnath route.
What a Cable Did in Uttarkashi
In a separate case in Uttarkashi, Uttarakhand, an Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau report on a helicopter crash there found that the pilot tried an emergency landing and that the rotor hit a cable, according to an account published July 19, 2025.
