ISLAMABAD, 23 January 2006 — Pakistan yesterday denied a wire service report of a relief helicopter going missing in Kashmir. All relief flights of the Pakistan Army and the International Committee of the Red Cross have reached their destinations safely,” said Maj. Usman of Army Aviation who is in charge of relief helicopter flights to the earthquake stricken areas.
The wire service report earlier created panic when it said, “An MI-8 chartered flight of the International Red Cross with seven crew members on board went missing during a flight from Peshawar to some earthquake stricken destination.”
“It was in fact a UH1H Bell helicopter of the Pakistan Army that left Dhamyal Aviation Base early Sunday and was scheduled to deliver relief goods at Chikothi. It was to make contact with Muzaffarabad with the call sign ‘Zarar-1’. It made the communication a bit late due to inclement weather. But it has now landed safely at Chikothi,” an Army Aviation source told Arab News.
Another source said helicopters of foreign countries do not undertake relief operations on Sundays. Only Pakistan’s Army Aviation operates flights of MI-17 and UH1H Bell to various destinations in Azad Kashmir. “All flights landed safely. Weather and visibility worsened after 1.30 p.m. and no more choppers were in the air thereafter.”
Oct. 8’s magnitude 7.6 quake killed 87,000 people and left about 3.5 million people homeless. Dozens of helicopters are involved in the mammoth relief effort.
In October, four people were killed when a UN helicopter heading for the quake zone crashed in Azerbaijan while a Pakistan Army helicopter went down in Kashmir because of bad weather, killing all six on board.
