“I need to see you boys smiling,” IAF chief Air Chief Marshal N.A.K. Browne said this to his men as he touched down at the airbase where the mood was sombre after the ill-fated Mi-17V5 helicopter crashed killing 20 people on-board.
“Oh I just told them that I want to see them smiling. I told them they need to keep moving forward,” Mr Browne told reporters this morning after he met his pilots and men on the tarmac here.
Donning his dark blue overall, Mr Browne made it a point by flying in a Mi-17 chopper from Dehradun and that too in a relief sortie that brought food and other materials.
He said the morale of his boys was sky high and they were flying their sorties with enthusiasm as there still was “job to be done” (of rescuing people).
Mr Browne also met the officials and troops of the Army, Indo-Tibetan Border Police and few from NDRF as he stayed at the helipad for close to an hour before flying back to Dehradun.
While returning, he took with himself the family of an IAF pilot rescued yesterday from the upper reaches of Garhwal.
The IAF chief also met the airmen at the field camp which the aviators have created to monitor the operations.
He also took a brief from the state government officials tasked with receiving rescued people and sending relief material.
Browne said a squad of Garuda commandos have located the wreckage of the Mi-17 V5 chopper that went down yesterday north of Gaurikund.
He also said the cockpit voice recorder of the helicopter has been recovered.