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“With deep regret, it has now been ascertained that Gen Bipin Rawat, Mrs Madhulika Rawat and 11 other persons on board have died in the unfortunate accident,” the air force said in a statement.
There were no immediate indications of foul play. Videos from the crash site broadcast by local news outlets showed the charred wreckage burning in the a forested area, with local residents and rescuers attempting to put out the blaze.
Rawat previously survived a helicopter crash: in 2015, his Cheetah helicopter suffered an engine failure and plummeted moments after it lifted off from a military base in northeast India. Rawat suffered minor injuries.
Rawat, 63, held a role similar to the U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He was India’s first chief of defense staff, a position created in 2019 as part of a military modernization effort to unify India’s army, navy and air force under one command.
The Indian military has undergone a significant reorientation in recent years as it redeploys resources and troops once targeted toward Pakistan to confront China, its massive northern neighbor. But under Rawat’s watch, the Indian military has seen its budget relative to the government’s total expenditures shrink consistently year after year as India’s economy sagged.
As Indian and Chinese troops skirmished along the remote Himalayan border in recent years, Rawat had been one of the most vocal Indian officials to characterize Beijing rather than Pakistan as the top threat to India. He has pulled the Indian military closer to a Biden administration seeking to counter China and visited Washington in October to discuss closer collaboration with the Pentagon.
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