Gautam Kumar

Biography

Sergeant Gautam Kumar hailed from Ailum village in Uttar Pradesh. He was enrolled into the Indian Air Force in June 2006 and, over a decade of service, worked at various Air Force bases operating diverse aircraft and associated systems. By 2017 he was serving with a helicopter unit under the Eastern Air Command, which operated the Mi-17 transport helicopter extensively used for air transport and logistics missions. In October 2017, Sergeant Gautam Kumar was posted with 157 Helicopter Unit, equipped with the Mi-17 V5, based at Air Force Station Barrackpore in West Bengal. At the time, numerous Indian Army units were deployed in far-flung areas of the northeast where no motorable roads existed, and their supplies depended largely on airdrops carried out by the IAF as Air Maintenance operations. On 6 October 2017, Sergeant Gautam Kumar was detailed as flight engineer for one such mission. The crew comprised Wing Commander Vikas Upadhyay and Squadron Leader Shishir Tewari as pilots, with Master Warrant Officer A. K. Singh and Sergeant Satish Kumar as flight gunners, alongside two Army personnel. The Mi-17 V5 took off from Khirmu helipad in Tawang district to carry supplies to forward posts in Topokhar near the Yangste area — the second air maintenance sortie of the day. At around 6 AM, while dropping supplies in a zone about 120 km north of Tawang, the net holding jerry cans of kerosene being offloaded became entangled in the helicopter's rear rotor. The chopper caught fire instantly and crashed, giving the pilots no chance to react. Sergeant Gautam Kumar and all six other military personnel on board were killed. He was a committed soldier and a professionally competent air warrior who laid down his life in the service of the nation.