New Delhi: From the Meenakshi Temple in Tamil Nadu to the Maha Kumbh Mela in Uttar Pradesh, garment exporter Anita Shivdasani is a seasoned and dedicated pilgrim. But it was the glass-bottom helicopter ride to Kedarnath with its views of Uttarakhand’s verdant valleys and snow-capped mountains that left a lasting impression.
Helicopters have become the favoured choice of transport along decades-old pilgrimage routes, providing fast-track access to some of India’s holiest shrines. But a spate of crashes and accidents in the last month and a half has exposed safety lapses in this booming sector. The most recent tragedy in Kedarnath on 15 June, which claimed seven lives, has spotlighted the lack of regulatory oversight and flight infrastructure such as Air Traffic Control (ATC) and real-time weather updates.
“Pre-pandemic, 80 per cent of our business in religious travel was clients travelling by buses,” said Neeraj Singh Dev, executive vice president at Thomas Cook & SOTC, prominent international travel agencies. “Today, 80 per cent of our clients now travel by helicopter. The ratio completely switched.”
Even after the Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s two-day suspension of helicopter services at Kedarnath ended on 17 June, people were lining up for a ride. From Vaishno Devi in Jammu & Kashmir to Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh, helicopters are ferrying tourists eager to offer devotion without the hassle of long treks and uncomfortable pony rides. Priced between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000, depending on the route, it’s considered an affordable time-saving option.
The most popular route is Kedarnath, but it’s also the most dangerous one. The temple town, which is part of the Char Dham Yatra pilgrimage route, witnessed five helicopter safety incidents—three emergency landings and two crashes—in the past month and a half. The DGCA suspended helicopter operations on 15 and 16 June, directed Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) to hold a comprehensive review and establish a Command-and-Control Room to monitor real-time operations.
Only a month before, six people died when a helicopter on its way to the Gangotri shrine lost altitude and crashed into a gorge. An October 2022 helicopter crash at the Kedarnath helipad prompted an investigation by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB), which published a report recommending UCADA set up an ATC and an Aviation Met Station for more accurate weather updates. Almost three years later, none of these have been implemented.
“This air corridor is amongst the country’s most dangerous,” said Anoop Nautiyal, an Uttarakhand-based social worker and founder of Social Development for Communities Foundation, an environmental action and advocacy group. “There is no ATC, radar alert or weather system. So essentially, pilots are flying blind.”
Rise in heli travel
The final leg of the journey to the Kedarnath temple is an arduous 16 km-long trek, seen by many devotees as a spiritual rite of passage. Traditionally, pilgrims had just two options to make their way from Gaurikund—by foot or on ponies. Today, mechanical birds dot the skies above mountain shrines.
“Earlier, this was a 12-day, 11-night itinerary. Char Dham Yatra was done entirely by bus, on hilly terrain and poor roads,” said Dev, who has seen the shift in consumer preferences over the years. “This has dropped to half since helicopter services were introduced.”
Multi-coloured posters line the walls of SOTC for Holiday’s Jaipur office. Packages to Australia, South Africa and Europe are heavily advertised, but it’s the ‘Char Dham Yatra by Helicopter’ package that is selling like hot cakes.
“We provide helicopters from point to point,” said Vikas Bisht, a deputy manager at SOTC, adding that these packages primarily cater to senior citizens. “Most of our customers are looking for comfort—they don’t want to walk for hours.”
The Rs 2.2 lakh-per-person, all-inclusive package covers five nights of stay, all meals, and helicopter transport to the four pilgrimage sites in Uttarakhand—Yamunotri, Gangotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath. Customers with deep pockets are flocking in droves, eager to skip long lines and gain fast-track access to the temple shrines.
State governments, in a bid to both improve accessibility and earn tax revenue, also launched helicopter shuttle services in collaboration with private operators. Different from the charter services that companies like Thomas Cook offered, the shuttles ferry pilgrims between fixed routes for relatively affordable prices.
In 2013, helicopters came to the rescue in Uttarakhand when a cloudburst caused heavy flooding and landslides. Indian Air Force choppers took part in the relief effort, but even back then, the hilly terrain and low visibility caused accidents. Private helicopter services started in the region in the early 2000s, but UCADA’s first tender process only dates back to 2018.
The state aviation authority accepted bids from private operators for four routes. Three routes were to Kedarnath—from Guptkashi, Phata and Sirsi. The fourth route was between Govindghat and Ghangaria. They have remained unchanged in subsequent tenders issued by UCADA.
Today, nine private operators service these four routes. The Guptkashi to Kedarnath route is serviced by Aryan Aviation Pvt Ltd., the operator involved in the most recent crash, and Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt Ltd. All online bookings are done through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website—HeliYatra.
“Out of the 19-20 lakh pilgrims that visited Kedarnath last year, about 5 per cent took helicopter services,” said Rahul Choubey, District Tourism Development Officer (DTDO) of the Rudraprayag district in Uttarakhand, where Kedarnath is located. “There is a lot of pressure in this sector. People want to go by helicopter and pay any price.”
Choubey added that the demand for helicopter services exceeds the available supply by three or four times. This mismatch has given rise to both a ticket black market and cybercriminals selling fake tickets to unsuspecting travellers. The websites of Pawan Hans Limited and Global Vectra Helicorp Limited, operators of the Phata to Kedarnath route, have large pop-ups warning customers of fake websites and agents.
During the Char Dham Yatra season, the Kedarnath area sees a daily average of 250-300 sorties. This number can increase up to 400 sorties when the weather permits, but the low cloud cover and unpredictable weather mean operations are often suspended for a few hours.
“When we arrived, there was a backlog from the day before, when they had cancelled flights because of the rainfall,” said Anita Shivdasani, who had paid Rs 8,000 for a round-trip from Guptkashi. “There was a long line at the booth for booking, but we went there early in the morning to beat it.”
Shivdasani recalled how they took off from a smaller, hilly area near Guptkashi and landed on a ‘more spacious, big helipad’ in Kedarnath. They still had to walk up to reach the shrine, but she was impressed with the helicopter facilities.
Not all shuttle services at religious sites are governed by the state aviation authority. At Vaishno Devi, the helicopter service is offered through the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board (Shrine Board), set up in 1986 to manage the yatra and govern the shrine.
The Shrine Board has partnered with two private operators—Global Vectra Helicorp and Himalayan Heli Services—to offer shuttle services between Katra and Sanjhichatt. Priced at Rs 4,420 for a round trip, multiple slots are available throughout the day, offering both same and next-day returns.
A more premium, all-inclusive package is also available. The ‘Jammu – Bhawan – Jammu’ route is priced between Rs 35,000 and Rs 60,000, and includes meals, accommodation, prashad boxes and VIP darshans, a cheat code that lets pilgrims skip queues.
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Lack of coordination
The post-Covid-19 surge in pilgrimage travel meant that helicopters were increasingly ferrying more passengers, doing multiple trips and racing to meet outsized demand. In areas like Kedarnath, prone to moody weather that shifts drastically within a couple of minutes, each flight carries a high-risk potential.
“Many of these copter accidents happen because of bad weather,” said Captain CS Randhawa, President of the Federation of Indian Pilots, highlighting that former Chief Minister of Telangana Rajasekhara Reddy also died in a weather-induced chopper accident. “The Uttarakhand terrain is quite mountainous, with low clouds in the valleys. And the monsoons make things worse.”
In Kedarnath, pilots operate under Visual Meteorological Conditions (VMC), relying on visual cues to maintain distance between other aircraft and terrain. The region doesn’t have any advanced navigational aids or an Air Traffic Control (ATC).
“ATCs are all about coordination,” said Captain Sanjay Chakravarty, Director of Operations at Aero Sports Sky Venture and a flight safety expert. “But even ATCs have limitations of a couple of kilometres. When you move into another airspace, you communicate with a different ATC. For example, there are two or three different ATCs between Delhi and Dehradun.”
After the October 2022 helicopter crash at the Kedarnath helipad, the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB) recommended the setup of an ATC, a weather station and the installation of CCTVs at helipads. In 2023, DGCA installed weather cameras at both the helipad and various vantage points to ensure real-time monitoring of weather conditions. The aviation authority also implemented CCTVs at helipads and mandated additional pilot training, but no ATC was built.
Pilots are all licensed, and many come from ex-military backgrounds with years of flight experience, according to Chakravarthy. For him, the main culprit is a lack of coordination between the various stakeholders—aviation authorities, pilots and helicopter operators. And capitalism.
“Helicopter operators are not providing these services for charity. Wherever there is flying, money is involved,” he said, highlighting that even operators pay taxes to the government for running their businesses. “Pilots may not have the guts to say no to operators, the same ones who pay their salaries.”
Operators pay a royalty of Rs 5,000 per landing at the Kedarnath helipad and Rs 3,000 per landing at the Ghangaria helipad, according to the 2023 addendum posted on the UCADA website. With an average of 250-300 sorties per day during the yatra season, the government collects between Rs 12.5 lakh and Rs 15 lakh per day, just from the Kedarnath helipad royalties. Passenger tickets also have a GST component, part of which goes to the state.
“A fundamental flaw in the operations of the Char Dham Yatra is that the government is focused on making records,” said Nautiyal, explaining that government press releases and media headlines are dominated by the season’s record pilgrim numbers. “The philosophy should be a culture of safety and sustainability—not chasing stupid numbers.”
Aviation experts like Chakravarthy and Randhawa both point to the lack of coordination between DGCA, UCADA and helicopter operators. “Everything is defined clearly in the rules and regulations, but DGCA needs to increase its oversight,” said Randhawa, highlighting that a weather check was not done before the 15 June accident, a situation that could have been avoided if protocol had been followed.
Rahul Choubey, the DTDO for Rudraprayag, highlighted that UCADA oversaw the administration of the shuttle service, but DGCA possessed the firepower to enforce rules and dole out punishments. According to him, DGCA does checks on pilots and equipment before the season, but since the body is in Delhi, there is a communication gap: Once pilgrims flood in, DGCA’s involvement slowly fades.
A parliamentary question in August 2023 inquired about the steps the government was taking for passenger safety. Then Minister of State for Civil Aviation, General Vijay Kumar Singh, stated in a written response that DGCA oversees the safety of helicopter operations across India. In particular, the body ensures compliance with rules and regulations and deals with any violations of safety regulations. The answer was clear—the buck stops with the civil aviation body.
Historically, DGCA has stepped in after disasters, putting in place new rules and suspending licenses. Most recently, the body capped shuttle services on the Char Dham route to nine flights per hour—four from Sirsi, three from Phata and two from Guptkashi—nearly halving the number of daily sorties to 150. The move was a reaction to an accident on 7 June, when a helicopter crashed on the way from Sirsi to Kedarnath.
The body also certifies the private helicopter operators that provide shuttle services across India. All the companies listed on both the IRCTC website for Kedarnath and the Shrine Board website for Vaishno Devi are certified by DGCA, with details of their aircraft models, registration numbers and license validity displayed.
Under the Aircraft Rules 1937, the DGCA also displays detailed requirements for issuing pilot licenses. These include being at least 17 years of age, 10th pass, a written examination and flight experience of at least 40 hours, out of which a minimum of 15 hours is solo flight time.
“Everything is written on paper, but implementation is the problem,” said Nautiyal, frustrated with the lack of administration at the Kedarnath temple. He highlighted that over 20,000 people take the pilgrimage every day, and there is no provision for even handling footwear outside the temple.
“If such a system cannot handle chappals, how will it handle helicopters?” he said.
(Edited by Theres Sudeep)