Technical snag causes Army parachute to crash in Haryana's Yamunanagar; locals panic

Ajay Banerjee

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New Delhi, October 31

A parachute with a military-type load that landed near Yamunanagar in Haryana on Monday night and caused panic has been identified as the Indian Army’s own parachute, which was used for a training mission.

On Monday night, a parachute, carrying a military-use object, landed in southern Yamuna canal near Hamida Head in Yamunanagar.

Sources said this was one of the Army’s GPS-aided Precision Air Drop System (GPADS) dropped on Monday from the Indian Air Force (IAF) C130 special operations plane around 5.15 pm. All four parachutes had been dropped from an altitude of 12,000 feet. Other than the one that landed near the Yamuna canal, the other three have been accounted for as they landed at the designated spot.

The C-130 had taken off from Sarsawa air base in Uttar Pradesh, some 19 km south-west of Yamunanagar. The intended drop was Behat, near Yamuna river, close to Sarsawa.

These parachutes are auto guided by an onboard system and drop the load to the designated area.

In the case of this astray parachute, the system seems to have malfunctioned at a height of 3,000 ft that caused the parachute and the load to reach the Yamuna canal and not Behat.

“It was a routine training to drop these loads,” sources said.