AN 12 Transport plane Crash Thomas Cherian Latest News: 1968 A plane crash occurred in Himachal Pradesh’s Rohtang. More than 101 passengers lost their lives in this accident. Now, after 56 years, the body of a craftsman who was on board the plane has been recovered.
AN 12 Transport plane Crash Thomas Cherian: The year in which an air accident took place was 1968. This accident was located in Rohatang, Himachal Pradesh. In this accident, 101 passengers were killed, and now after 56 years later, the body of the craftsman, who was on board the aircraft as a passenger has been recovered. This body has been recovered because it was buried by the glacier. Total four bodies were recovered with one being that of a craftsman. Cherian, who died is identified as Army Craftsman. Cherian was one among the 101 passengers in the Indian Air Force AN 12 Transport plane, which had crashed into the mountains on February 7, 1968, near Rohatang. His body is one of the four bodies, which the team recovered.
He hails from a Kerala-based family.
The bodies were recovered from the Dhaka Glacier region up to 16,000 feet in altitude by the mountaineering teams led by Army’s Dogra Scouts, besides Purindam Garbar and Travis George. Thomas Cherian was from Kerala. When the accident occurred, Thomas Cherian was 22 years old. Thomas Cherian was a native of Pathanamthitta district of Kerala.
It was in 1972 that Cherian reached Karukara border. The father’s name was Odalil Thomas and the mother’s name was Eliamm. He had five siblings out of which Cherian was one of the two sons born to them. Cherian was Craftsman in the Defence Forces after he cleared pre-university course in Pathanamthitta.
According to his little brother Thomas, “For the family, it was a long wait. Yesterday evening a message came from the military headquarters at Delhi that the remains of Cherian had been recovered. In Cherian’s uniform pocket, apart from his chest number, there was a partially burnt book with his name, which helped identify him. We were informed that once the formalities are completed, it would send the remains back to Kerala in a few days”.
He wrote in Loh. He was Cheriyan.
Cherian Lech was based in Thiruvanthapuram in 1968. When the accident occurred, he was on his way to Chandigarh from Delhi, leaving the family alone. Both Thoms’s father and Cherian’s mother were retired people of BHEL. They died in 1990 because news has come that Cherian had died even in 1998. Cherian’s Family Words – “Every year on 7 February, there is only one job – to remember. His death anniversary is never celebrated with the death of any other person recently.
It was communicated officially in 2003 that Cherian is dead and the body is waiting for the family. Every four or five years, the army would report on the status and say that it was only searching.
The whole family is in defense forces.
Strange enough, it is now so that many members of the Odalil family are in the defence forces. Thomas Mathew, Cherian’s elder brother, was already an officer in the army when the plane crash took his life. Two years after Cherian’s death, Mathew was made to take voluntary retirement at the behest of his parents. His son Sanju is a Colonel in the army.
