Krishnamoorthy Praveen, SC

Biography

Flt Lt Krishnamoorthy Praveen hailed from Madurai district of Tamil Nadu. He was the only son of Smt Manjula who was working as an Office Superintendent at Southern Railway. He was disciplined and meritorious while studying at the TVS Matriculation Higher Secondary School. He finished his BE from Thiagarajar College of Engineering and then worked for two months at an IT company. But he always wanted to serve in the armed forces and his dream came true when he cleared the combined defense examination got selected for the flying branch in the Indian Air Force. After passing out from NDA, he went to Air Force Academy (AFA). He got trained as a helicopter pilot, as part of the 183rd Pilots' Course. He passed out from AFA and got commissioned on 27 Jun 2009. He joined the 157 Helicopter Unit, operating Mi-17 helicopters. Mi-17 Helicopter Crash: 25 June 2013. On 25 June 2013, Flt Lt Krishnamoorthy Praveen along with the captain and Crew of the Mi-17 helicopter was tasked to move essential supplies and National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) teams to Kedarnath, located at an elevation of over 11000 feet and rescue stranded pilgrims from Kedarnath during the return sorties. Inclement weather, frequently drifting clouds and poor light conditions prevalent in the unforgiving terrain of the narrow valley led to frequent delays in the operations and this made their task extremely demanding. Realizing the gravity of their task and the criticality of the evacuation of some of the stranded pilgrims, Flt Lt Krishnamoorthy Praveen and his crew volunteered for the critical mission and got airborne in the first available window of opportunity to position his helicopter at Guptakashi. During the return leg from Kedarnath to Guptakashi, the aircraft impacted on the steep slopes of the valley and crashed. The weather was so bad at that time that it took a long time for rescue teams to reach the crash site. On that day the helicopter carried out three sorties which were undertaken under deteriorating weather conditions. During these three sorties, they successfully saved 80 precious lives. For this act of conspicuous courage, professional competence, and successful execution of a risky mission to save precious lives in hostile weather conditions. Besides Flt Lt Krishnamoorthy Praveen, the other martyred brave hearts during the operation included Wg Cdr Darryl Castelino, Flt Lt Tapan Kapoor, JWO Akhilesh Kumar Singh, and Sgt Sudhakar Yadav. For his act, of conspicuous courage, professional competence, and successful execution of a risky mission to save precious lives in hostile weather conditions in an extremely inhospitable environment, Flt Lt Krishnamoorthy Praveen was awarded “Shaurya Chakra” (Posthumously).