DEHRADUN: Sharmila Devi, who witnessed Sunday's helicopter crash on the Kedarnath route from just 20 metres away, provided an eyewitness account to authorities on how the crash happened.
A little over an hour before the crash, Devi, a Gaurikund resident, and her sister had left their home with other local women around 4am to cut fodder in the forests of Gauri Mai Khark for mules and horses used by Kedarnath pilgrims. They reached the forest by 5am. "At that time, there were clouds, but no fog," recalled Devi.
Then, without warning, everything changed.
"Suddenly, as the helicopter flew in, a thick fog appeared out of nowhere, like a curtain falling from the sky. The chopper turned slightly, circled back, and then moved forward, but it hit a tall tree and crashed. It happened right before our eyes. I never thought I'd witness something so terrifying, and that too so close," she added.
The fog lifted as quickly as it had appeared. "By the time we could see again, the helicopter was in flames. It happened very fast," she said.
As the sisters ran toward the wreckage, they saw a devastating sight. "There was a little girl lying on the ground. She wasn't moving. It looked like she'd been thrown from the chopper and hit a rock," said Devi.
Authorities later identified the child as two-year-old Kashi, daughter of Rajkumar Jaiswal, 41, a coal transporter from Maharashtra, and his wife Shraddha Jaiswal, 35. The others who died in the crash were Captain Rajveer Singh Chauhan, the pilot and a resident of Jaipur; Vikram Rawat, 45, a Badri-Kedar temple committee representative from Rudraprayag; and Vinod Devi, 66, and Trishti Singh, 19, both from Uttar Pradesh.
Devi said they alerted a nearby contractor after seeing the wreckage who then informed others. But by the time help arrived, the damage had been done: the bodies had been charred in the fire. Rescue teams from SDRF and NDRF later recovered all seven bodies.
Her account aligns with what experts suspect may have contributed to the crash. District disaster management officer NK Rajwar had said, "It seems the weather changed suddenly, creating foggy conditions that caused the chopper to lose its course, ultimately leading to the accident." The regional meteorological centre had issued a yellow alert for Sunday for heavy rain across 10 districts, including Rudraprayag.
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