The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has introduced an additional hill check for pilots operating to helipads at 10,000 ft during the Char Dham yatra from this season onwards. This comes as at least six pilgrims and a pilot were killed in a chopper crash near Kedarnath Shrine in Uttarakhand on October 2022.
A senior official informed that under the safety measures, pilots operating in the Himalayan region will get specialised training under the new set of rules introduced by DGCA.
After the last year’s chopper crash that claimed seven lives and another incident that happened this year where an official of the Uttarakhand government was killed after coming in contact with a tail rotor, DGCA issued safety guidelines to all operators in the hill region.