Mountaineers on a mission to clean the Himalayas discovered the body of one of the victims of the 1968 Indian Air Force plane crash that led to the deaths of all 98 soldiers on board.
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Mountaineers on a mission to clean the Himalayas discovered the body of one of the victims of the 1968 Indian Air Force plane crash that led to the deaths of all 98 soldiers on board.
A team of mountaineers from the Delhi-based Indian Mountaineering Foundation were cleaning the Dhaka glacier base camp near Chadratal lake in Himachal Pradesh a few days ago when they found the body along with a section of the aircraft’s wreckage.
The body has not been identified yet but it was found in decayed condition.
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According to The Times of India, the mountaineers informed the High Altitude Warfare School on 16 July.
The plane crash happened on 7 February 1968. A Soviet-made Antonov An-12 twin engine turboprop transport aircraft of the IAF was flying to Leh from Chandigarh. The pilot of the aircraft was forced to turn back due to inclement weather at Leh.
The aircraft went missing while flying over the Rohtang Pass, when it had made the last radio contact.
All efforts to find the wreckage of the aircraft failed till 2003, when a mountaineering expedition found parts of the Antonov. Only five bodies have recovered since then.
The first body that was found was identified as Sepoy Beli Ram, a soldier of the Indian Army who was on the flight. Another body, which was found in 2013, was identified as NCO Jagmail Singh.
The Indian Army launched expedition code named Operation Punaruthan-III on 9 August 2007 to find more bodies. They were able to recover three.
The Dhaka glacier is located 6,200 metres above sea level.
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