GUWAHATI: Indian military helicopter crashed on Thursday in Assam. Twopilots Wing Commander J James and Wing Commander D Vats were killed in thecrash.

Police in the island district confirmed the incident and the deaths. It issuspected that the crash took place due to technical reasons, the officeradded. A court of inquiry has been ordered to ascertain the cause of theaccident.

The crash took place around noon at Darbar Chapori, a sand bar in theBrahmaputra, soon after taking off from the Jorhat air base. People fromvillages in the district spotted the aircraft going up in flames andinformed the authorities. The chopper was flying to Arunachal Pradesh.

“An Indian Air Force Microlight Virus SW-80 crashed around 1200 hrs today,after getting airborne from Air Force Station Jorhat, for a routinesortie,” the defence ministry said in a statement in New Delhi.

The pilots attempted an emergency landing but the aircraft crashed in asand bar in the northern part of the district and went up in flames,Tezpur-based defence spokesperson Lt. Col. Harshvardhan Pande told PTI.

The IAF link> had procured around 80Slovenian-origin microlight aircraft about three years ago. They areusually deployed for environmental and bird recce missions, an IAF officialsaid.