Clouds, narrow valleys: What makes Uttarakhand's pilgrim helicopter flights tricky, and the rules for them

A helicopter with six on board, including the pilot, crashed near Jyotirmath in Uttarakhand on Friday, the latest accident on the state's pilgrim helicopter routes, where regulators have tightened the rules for flying several times in the past four years.

Rescuers recovered six bodies from the site in Chamoli district, near the town formerly known as Joshimath. The helicopter, operated by Trans Bharat Aviation, was flying from Badrinath to Dehradun. The cause of the crash has not been established. The Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA), the state body that manages helicopter operations for the pilgrimage, has grounded the company's fleet as a precaution.

Helicopters on the Char Dham circuit, which takes pilgrims to four Himalayan shrines, fly through narrow valleys where clouds can form and move quickly. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which investigates air accidents in India, recorded eight accidents and one serious incident in the sector between 2015 and 2025. Some of them were followed by new rules, audits, fines and suspensions from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), India's aviation regulator, and from the state. Helicopters fly only during the pilgrimage season, the months each year when the shrines are open, which ends when they close for winter.

Difficult area to fly in

Helicopters on the Char Dham routes have to navigate fast-changing weather, narrow valleys, and heat and humidity.

The weather in these hills can change rapidly, with sudden cloud cover or rain. DGCA issued its 2023 rules for pilgrimage flights "keeping in view that most of the pilgrimage shrines are located in the hills where the weather conditions change rapidly including sudden clouding and/or precipitation", the AAIB said in a report on a 2025 crash.

The routes run through narrow valleys over rugged terrain, and the hours in which helicopters can fly are limited, the civil aviation ministry had said in June. In the first phase of this year's pilgrimage season, from April to June 26, there were about 400 helicopter movements a day, according to the ministry. Shuttle and charter flights carried more than 78,000 passengers.

On the Kedarnath shuttle, pilots fly by sight. DGCA's rules require them to follow a fixed path along one side of the valley at set heights, and to land at the shrine's helipad by what they can see, according to the same AAIB report. Until this year, the Kedarnath flights had no air traffic control. Pilots must call out their own positions on a shared radio frequency at fixed points to communicate with other pilots in the valley.

Heat and humidity can also reduce how much a helicopter can lift. "With an increase in ambient temperatures and humidity, the power available decreases and consequently the load carrying capability reduces," DGCA had said in a 2022 advisory to operators. The advisory told pilots to abandon the approach to the helipad and return to base if winds from behind or the side went beyond permitted limits.

Helicopters also crashed during rescue operations after the 2013 floods in Uttarakhand. An Indian Air Force helicopter on flood relief crashed near Gaurikund in June that year, killing 20 personnel, and a private helicopter carrying relief material crashed in the Kedarnath valley in July, killing its pilot and co-pilot.

Bad weather and low visibility held up rescue flights in the upper reaches of the mountains, an Army helicopter pilot who flew those missions had told HT after the IAF crash. Heavy cloud cover cut out natural light and affected navigation, he said, adding that the helicopters' instruments were of little use in bad weather.

The June 2025 crash investigation

On June 15, 2025, a helicopter returning from Kedarnath crashed near Gaurikund, killing all seven people on board.

There was no meteorological facility in the Kedarnath valley, the AAIB recorded in its interim report on the crash, published in November that year. A weather instrument at the Kedarnath helipad measured wind, visibility and temperature, but "does not provide any information about clouds", the report said. It also pointed out that readings were not saved, instead a UCADA security staffer posted screenshots of the figures on a WhatsApp group of operators.

On the morning of the crash, no screenshot had been posted by the time the first flight took off. Investigators were told the information "is usually provided later in the day".

To check for cloud cover, operators watched live feeds from three cameras along the valley. That morning, the camera facing the valley's exit showed it was covered by clouds moving down into the valley, according to the report.

In its final report, issued on October 13, the AAIB recommended that pilots fly at least 50 hours of supervised hill sorties with an experienced pilot before flying the Kedarnath valley alone for the first time. It also recommended that DGCA oversee the control centre at Sitapur, set up to manage helicopter traffic in the valley, and that radio calls between pilots and ground controllers be recorded.

The AAIB said its investigations are meant to prevent accidents, "not to apportion blame or liability".

The rulebook

DGCA writes the rules for pilgrimage flights through operations circulars that apply to operators and pilots. UCADA allots flying slots to operators. The Airports Authority of India (AAI) provides air traffic control, and the India Meteorological Department (IMD) provides weather information.

The main circular for pilgrimage flights across India was issued in February 2023. For the Kedarnath shuttle, it fixes the route and the height at each point. Helicopters must climb to 8,500 feet by the valley's entry, and leave it at 9,000 feet on the way back. No more than four helicopters may be in the valley at once, two going up and two coming down. UCADA staggers operators across blocks of time between sunrise and half an hour before sunset.

DGCA tightened the rules in 2025. In June, after three accidents in a month, it issued additional safety measures for Char Dham flights and revised its rules on flying in bad weather.

These rules require:

Regular weather updates for the departure point, the route and the destination

Clear criteria for turning back or diverting

A conservative approach to decisions to fly

Pilots experienced in bad-weather flying

No extensions to pilots' duty hours during the monsoon

Scenario-based training on diverting and turning back

In September 2025, DGCA amended the 2023 circular to set up the control centre at Sitapur. A UCADA official runs it, assisted by an air traffic controller from AAI and a meteorological officer from IMD.

For the first phase of the 2026 season, the civil aviation ministry introduced a wider set of measures. AAI started air traffic control at Sahastradhara in Dehradun and at Sersi, a helicopter base in Rudraprayag district, and published fixed helicopter routes. Command centres at Sahastradhara and Sitapur monitored helipads, flights and weather, and every helicopter was fitted with a tracking device.

Automatic weather stations with ceilometers, instruments that measure the height of the cloud base, were also installed at Sitapur, Kedarnath, Badrinath, Jhala and Kharsali. Pilots needed at least 750 hours of hill flying, 100 of them in the preceding year, and 10 take-offs and landings at Kedarnath.

Enforcement of rules

DGCA and the state have enforced the rules mainly through audits, inspections, fines and suspensions, many of them ordered after accidents.

In June 2022, days after a helicopter carrying pilgrims came down hard on the Kedarnath helipad (no one was injured), DGCA carried out spot checks and then audited shuttle operators. It subsequently fined five operators ₹5 lakh each over irregularities in their flying records, including logbooks that showed fewer hours than were actually flown. Officials at two other operators were suspended for three months.

In April 2023, a UCADA official was killed by a helicopter's tail rotor on the ground at Kedarnath. DGCA ordered a second audit of all operators before clearing them for the season, and grounded and audited the operator involved. In May, it announced specialised training for pilots flying in the Himalayas.

After the crash near Gaurikund on June 15, 2025, the company that ran the helicopter had its Char Dham operations suspended, and all charter and shuttle flights in the region were halted for two days, the civil aviation ministry said. The next month, UCADA ordered a probe after an operator flew to Kedarnath when its permission had been withdrawn because of the weather. DGCA also ordered special audits and familiarisation flights for pilots new to the sector or returning after more than a year away.

The ministry told the Rajya Sabha that there had been six helicopter accidents during the Char Dham Yatra between 2021 and June 2025, four of them in the first half of 2025.

This year, DGCA posted flight-operations and airworthiness teams at key helipads for surprise inspections and audits, and monitored pilots' duty hours daily.