FIVE IAF helicopters, including the recently inducted US-manufactured Chinook, landed on a stretch of the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway as part of an Emergency Landing Facility drill, the first such exercise in J&K, officials said on Tuesday. With this, J&K became the first UT to operationalise an Emergency Landing Facility (ELF). Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan are the three States where these emergency landing strips are currently operational.

 

According to the officials, two US-manufactured Chinook, one Russian-made Mi-17 and two Advance Light helicopters (ALH) of the Indian Air Force (IAF) landed on the Wanpoh-Sangam stretch of the national highway linking Kashmir with the rest of the country in the early hours of Tuesday. The entire drill ended by 2.50 am, during which the helicopters landed at the stretch and carried an exercise of picking up troops lying on the ground, the officials said, adding the exercise was held without any problems, they said. Work on the 3.5-km emergency landing strip was started in 2020 and completed late last year as part of a programme initiated by the IAF along with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for the creation of ELFs at different locations across the country.