And they set off to break the ice, crack the puzzle

The rest of us can try to be poetic given the sweep of the subject: an Indian Air Force plane with 98 on board crashing into the gigantic sp...

The rest of us can try to be poetic given the sweep of the subject: an Indian Air Force plane with 98 on board crashing into the gigantic sprawl of the Dhaka glacier, the debris buried under white sheets of ice for 35 full years until someone finds one skeleton. And the search begins.

For those doing the searching, however, the mission statement is far more tough: a treacherous trek that begins at an altitude of 11,500 feet and could end only at somewhere around 20,000 across ravines and crevices that get flooded to dangerous levels by the onrush of the melting snow.

Though the team set off today, the members had begun trooping in at Manali’s Mountaineering Institute on Thursday. Of the 50-member team, eight IAF mountaineers led by Wing Commander Amit Chaudhari from the Saharanpur Air Force base were the first to arrive on Thursday. One more trekker and a seemingly out-of-place Vayu Bhawan official Wing Commander Iqbal Ahmed arrived the next day.

Story continues below this ad

He’s from the flight safety department, his job is to read the clues and establish whether it was something other than bad weather that caused the crash of the aircraft.


Mountaineers near the body of Beli Ram, a victim of the 1968 crash

For, official records so far maintain that on February 7, 1968, in the skies above Rohtang Pass, the IAF An-12 disappeared. It was on its way to Chandigarh after bad weather apparently shut it out of Leh. Search teams fanned out then but found nothing. And so the plane and all on board were declared lost.

Until last month I D Sharma, a Mountaineering Institute instructor, stumbled across a paybook belonging to one Sepoy Bali Ram along with the remains of his skeleton. This fuelled interest so much so that an unprecedented search has been launched.

‘‘What this mission will try and achieve,’’ says team member Flt Lt Ramakant, ‘‘is a proper ground assessment of what actually is there. Then see what can be salvaged and, of course, the documents and other such proof which may be vital to the families of the deceased.’’

Wing Commander Chaudhari has set up a camp at the road head in Batal. Most of the gear, including radio sets and foodstuff, is in place with the Mountaineering Institute playing a key role in filling the gaps.

Story continues below this ad

Before the team’s arrival in Batal, there were some intense map-reading sessions at institute director Col. H S Chauhan’s office. Terming it as ‘‘difficult’’—the categorisation for treks being easy, moderate, difficult and very difficult—Chauhan called for caution, especially around the glacier site. ‘‘Remember, it is prone to avalanches,’’ he said.

Around the time Chauhan was making his point, a team of 15 Army mountaineers joined Chaudhari’s group from their high-altitude location in Samdoh. These special Western Command forces called the 36 Sector Force have arguably some of Army’s best trekkers.

Located at a height of 11,500 feet, Batal is the last point accessible by road. Chauhan said the team will move along the left side of the River Chandra—one of two rivers after which this mountain range is named, the other being River Baga—and then climb eight km upstream.

‘‘The challenging part of the trek will be to cross a nullah that falls after 3 km. It has to be crossed in the forenoon as it begins to swell thereafter and is extremely dangerous beyond 4 pm. This is mainly because of the large volume of snow, which melts in the upper reaches during that period,’’ he said.