17,000 ft high, 17 km on foot: How Indian Army brought home mortal remains of 1968 plane crash victims

Fifty-six years after leaving his hometown to serve the Indian Army, Odalil Puthenvettil Thomas Cherian was finally laid to rest at St Peter's Orthodox Church in Karoor, Elanthoor in Pathanamthitta on Friday. CFN (Craftsman) Thomas Cherian of EME Corps was one of the four soldiers whose bodies were recovered from the 1968 IAF crash site. Besides Cherian, mortal remains of Sepoy Malkhan Singh, Sepoy Narayan Singh, and Craftsman Munshi were brought back to their respective hometowns thanks to the unrelenting efforts of the Dogra Scouts division of the Indian Army.

The troops belonging to the Dogra Scouts braved biting cold, navigated unforgiving terrains and carried the mortal remains on foot for 17 kilometres to grant closure to the families of these men. “The mortal remains were carried by troops on foot from the search camp to the roadhead camp, covering a distance of approximately 17 kilometers, before being transported by vehicle to Losar. From there, the remains were airlifted to the soldiers' hometowns,” Colonel Lalit Mohan Palariya, Commanding Officer of the Dogra Scouts, told Onmanorama.
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The IAF flight's crash site lies in the glaciated Chandra Bhaga 13 range at altitudes between 14,500 and 17,000 feet - a treacherous terrain filled with crevasses. The nearest operational helipad from the site was at Losar, approximately 65 kilometers from the area where the remains were discovered.

Satellite imagery and multiple drone flights were used to map the area and plan the search, while Recco Radar, a specialised technology capable of detecting metallic objects buried in snow up to 20 meters deep, was deployed extensively.

“Manual digging followed radar signals, resulting in the discovery of one set of remains near the aircraft debris. Three more were found during a manual search of crevasses,” the commanding officer said.

"There is no established frequency for these search operations. But the 2024 expedition to Chandra Bhaga 13 was meticulously planned, with a focused search to recover the mortal remains. In line with the Indian Army's ethos of 'No Man Left Behind,' we continue our rescue efforts for those lost in the crash, even decades later. Future searches are also being planned to ensure that the fallen soldiers receive the military honours they deserve, and to bring closure to their families," Colonel Palriya said.

Since 2003, the Dogra Scouts have conducted several expeditions in the hazardous, icy terrain after civilian trekkers from the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Mountaineering discovered the wreckage of the aircraft and the mortal remains of a person in the snow. The Antonov AN-12, the twin-engine turboprop transport aircraft crashed in the Chandra Bhaga range near Rohtang Pass on February 7, 1968. The plane, carrying 102 people, had gone missing while flying from Chandigarh to Leh. Nine bodies have been recovered so far as part of Operation Punaruthan by the Indian Army and Air Force. It is one of the longest-running and most successful search missions in the country.

Over the years, the Dogra Scouts have participated in various other rescue operations, including missions at Khimloga Pass in Kinnaur, where the remains of a civilian trekker were recovered from a crevasse, and at Mount Trishul in Uttarakhand, where an expedition team caught in an avalanche was rescued. They were also involved in the rescue of trainees from the NIM Institute trapped in an avalanche at Draupadi Ka Danda in Uttarakhand, and the rescue of 100 stranded shepherds during peak winter near Chandratal-Batal.