Flying continues unabated 24/7/365 till visibility drops below 1000 metres or conditions at base/destination goes below minima — a rare occurrence, typically just 2-3 times in a year. The primary client is public sector undertaking (PSU) “Maharatna” Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) and a couple of private sector giants. Only 2-3 helicopter companies with “depth” can compete in this exacting environment that stretches from sea level to about 3000 feet. State-run Pawan Hans Limited (PHL), hithertofore a competitor in this field, has since vacated the arena after a series of accidents that shook passenger confidence despite the comfort zone two PSUs (ONGC-PHL) enjoyed in this client-service provider relationship.
These are high-value offshore contracts with intricate standards and punishing liquidated damage (LD) clauses that companies bid for and win on a competitive basis. Upfront, there are no fare-paying passengers. Should the Captain decide to turn back due to “weather” or “technical” ( DNCO or “duty not carried out” in military parlance), passengers would at best begrudge another night’s stay in the company guest house or hotel. They can always take another flight the same day or next — no pressure. Yet there have been serious accidents that were traced back to a flawed model that incentivised ‘flying hours’ and ‘number of landings’ over safety in this industry.
Now imagine a situation where a bunch of eight or nine start-ups or small-cap companies field 40-50 helicopters for a short-term, lucrative contract in the Himalayas where:
Is it surprising if operators become the beasts of burden in this scenario where there is big money to be made and incentives for shortcuts are far too many? It’s all fine till a helicopter crashes and lives are lost. Even then, holding the operator responsible for all losses and the state (contractually) washing its hands off must strike people with a conscience as odd, but here we are.
As another helicopter, this time a Bell 407, VT-BKA belonging to Aryan Aviation Pvt Ltd, slammed into a hillside in Uttarakhand today Jun 15, 2025 with loss of seven lives (pilot+5 adults+1 infant), a larger question begs answer — who is responsible for safety management in what is veritably the ‘cash cow’ sector of helicopter industry in India? And, more importantly, what power or agency do those whom the authorities hold “responsible for safety” wield in implementing course corrections?
Some answers can be found in documents issued by Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) which runs the heli-tourism wing for and on behalf of the Uttarakhand state government.
Fuelled by the Modi government’s flagship Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS) and ‘Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik” (UDAN) schemes, heli-tourism, especially to far-flung shrines in the mountains, has seen an uptick in recent years. On first look, there is nothing wrong with the policy as such. Helicopters, indeed all vertical lift, fills a niche in rugged mountains that nothing else can. The Char Dham circuit is so holy in India that it is considered poor form to even speak of it without the respectful suffix of “ji” (as in Kedarnath Ji). Helicopters can turn a 5-hour trek or pony ride across rugged mountainous terrain into a 15-minute air shuttle. Who in government can possibly say no to an idea that propels heli-tourism revenue, where all accountability is outsourced to an “operator” while the state keeps skimming money off the top?
In a country where people die in stampedes and fall off the footboard of moving trains without doors in the 21st Century, who should be the final arbiter for safety? The pilgrim who has been given the opportunity to buy a helicopter ticket cheaper than a pony ride? Or a ‘2+1 helicopter company’ who wants to ‘extract maximus’ from the milk cow of the industry? Or UCADA, whose , replete with spelling mistakes and “no data found”, gives a glimpse into how cheap a pilgrim or tourist’s life is in India?
Look at the odds. And the irony. Listed below are some of the clauses extracted from a recent floated by UCADA for the selection of a helicopter shuttle operator from Joshiyara to Gangotri:
And here’s the clincher!
The hill state of Uttarakhand is popularly known as “Dev Bhoomi” — meaning ‘Abode of the Gods’. The Char Dham Yatra represents one of the holiest pilgrimages for practising Hindus. As defined by Hindu saint and philosopher Adi Shankara, Char Dham or the Chatur Dhama is a set of four Hindu pilgrimage sites in India, comprising Badrinath (in Uttarakhand), Dwarka (in Gujarat), Puri (in Odisha) and Rameshwaram (in Tamil Nadu). This ‘Char Dham ‘ is often confused with “Chota Char Dham”, which comprises Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath.
Today, Chota Char Dham has gained ascendancy over Char Dham thanks to the slick marketing of Hindu religious tourism by central and state authorities. With throwaway ticket prices speaking to a “come one, come all” audience, it is hardly surprising that the IRCTC window for heli-tourism ticketing in this sector closes within minutes of opening — for a season that lasts just 5-6 months, including the Amarnath Yatra! All this in the middle of weather most unsuitable for helicopter flying — the Southwest Monsoon (Jun-Sep).
A veteran of this sector shared a video with me that I found tantalisingly dangerous, given the marginal conditions of terrain and topography in this sector. They call it Rambara Express. It shows an ominous cloud filling the Kedar valley so fast, it can prove to be the nemesis for single-pilot VFR operations. This is what the pilot had to say: “Rambara is a village south of Kedarnath, from where this cloud weather phenomenon builds up. It builds up so fast and moves at an express pace towards the temple. That’s why, it’s name..Rambara Express.”
The earning season is very small, and the stakes are inordinately high. In remote Himalayan helipads, what kind of operations/maintenance support can be expected to hold up against a system that expects operators to fly shuttles dawn to dusk, charging them extortionate rates for every landing while providing absolutely nothing in return except ticket fares that are capped at pony ride fares? Even the Indian military suspends routine flying in the mountains after noon!
A series of accidents have only added to the regulatory overload while doing precious little to correct what is essentially a flawed economic model that promotes shuttles and landings over safety. For example, the number of helicopters in the Kedar valley at any given time was reduced from four to two and payload restricted from In Ground Effect (IGE) to Out of Ground Effect (OGE), meaning lesser payload (and hence more shuttles to earn “promised” revenue). In effect, the state government and UCADA has pumped more air into the shrine tourism balloon while watchdog DGCA has covered its tracks with Operations Circulars that are “unobtanium” in the existing context (OC 02 of 2023). When helicopters operating under little to no oversight under Himalayan conditions meet aspirations of an “awakened” pilgrim on a holy pilgrimage to “wash off all sins”, expect new sins of omission or commission.
Thanks to all the hardsell coupled with the pull of cheap tickets, the hill shrines of Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath have been seeing footfalls like never before. Shrine boards and the UCADA have been incentivising this feeding frenzy with no real investments in infrastructure or safety management systems. To make matters worse, operators hire ex-military pilots with hill flying experience and incentivise them with cash bounties that draw them away from well-regulated sectors like offshore. It can only go south from here.
The situation is so bad, helicopter operators can learn a thing or two from pony operators who seem to have a higher benchmark for what works in the hills and what doesn’t. The flawed financial model at the root of this unholy heli-tourism sector merits greater scrutiny and could well hold the keys to solving the puzzle. Meanwhile, as fare-paying passengers, please do your due diligence and take the safer option till further advice. As it seems, nobody has your back.
If the triumvirate of MoCA, UCADA and DGCA has succeeded in one mission, it is to unite the pilgrim with his/her Maker, as two fatal accidents in as many months have shown. It is about time pilgrims take responsibility for their own lives.
Signing off with thoughts and prayers for seven onboard the last flight of VT-BKA.
“Baba Kedar ki Jai”
Cdr KP Sanjeev Kumar is a former Navy test pilot and alumnus of Air Force Test Pilots School, ASTE. He has flown over 5,000 hours on 24 types of aircraft and helicopters. He calls himself ‘full-time aviator, part-time writer’ and blogs at . Views are personal.
This article was first published on the author’s blog .
