Missing IAF chopper traced in Dantewada, all occupants safe

   
The incident took place around 1600 hours today when an MI-17 of the IAF, carrying seven personnel onboard, was on a casualty evacuation mission to retrieve some personnel of CAF from the forests of Sukma district.
    
"The helicopter is safe. It has landed in Temelwada and one of our radio operators has been hit," Director General of Police Ram Niwas told news agency.
    
The helicopter, which had 7 people on-board, was fired when it was descending to pick up an injured jawan of the CAF which was conducting a road-opening operation along with CRPF, a senior CRPF official said.
   
The CRPF has cordoned off the helicopter and has rushed reinforcements to the area.
    
Security officials said Maoists could have fired on the flying machine from a nearby hilltop.
    
The helicopter had flown from Dantewada district headquarters and it had gone off the radar for sometime, they said.
    
Earlier today, Naxals killed a CAF security personnel and injured another during the road-opening task in the area.     

Anti-Naxal forces have been using services of the IAF and those of the state government's aviation unit for support duties their pursuit against Maoists.
    
The helicopter services are used for casualty evacuation, providing relief supplies during an operation and also for air dropping of para-military and state police personnel.

IAF spokesperson Sqn Ldr Priya Joshi said, "While the chopper was losing control due to fuel leak and failure of generator and hydraulics, it was hit second time but the pilot managed to land the chopper safely there. In the process, one CRPF personal was injured."
    
It was not immediately clear whether the chopper is fit for flying, she said in Delhi.
    
The IAF has government's permission to fire back at Naxals in extremist-hit areas in self-defence.
    
The IAF had suffered a casulaty during the 2009 General Elections when one of its choppers on polling duty got hit by the Naxals while taking off.
   
Consequently, the IAF has fitted side-ward mounted machine guns on its helicopters flying in Naxal-affected areas basically for logistics, personnel transport and casualty evacuation of paramilitary forces engaged in fighting the Maoists, sources said.
    
Recently, IAF Chief ACM NAK Browne had expressed concern over safety of IAF choppers deployed in these areas due to lack of infrastructure for them in the Naxal affected states.
    
IAF completed three years of its engagement in these operations in December last year in which its chopper pilots have flown over 5,000 sorties.