When a Union Minister of State from Tamil Nadu died in a chopper crash in Arunachal Pradesh Premium
The Hindu
Tragic recount of Union Minister N.V.N. Somu's fatal helicopter crash in 1997, reflecting on his legacy and impact.
The death of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar in a plane crash on Wednesday (January 28, 2026) morning revived flashbacks of a mid-air tragedy, in which a Union Minister of State from Tamil Nadu and three senior Army officers were killed, 28 years ago.
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On the morning of November 14, 1997, N.V.N. Somu, Union Minister of State for Defence in the I.K. Gujral Government and a well-known DMK trade union leader, had telephoned his wife Uma Devi. “I will be at home tonight,” he told her from Arunachal Pradesh. He asked her to read out the important reports from the local newspapers and requested her to tell their son-in-law to spend the night at his residence in Purasawalkam in Chennai.
N.V.N. Somu. | Photo Credit: The Hindu Archives
Moments later, Somu boarded a helicopter. The chopper, also carrying Major General Ramesh Nagpaul and two Army pilots, Major P.K. Agarwal and Major P.C. Sharma, took off in the Lungar Sector, north of Mago in Tawang district. Five minutes after take-off, around 9.10 a.m., the chopper crashed, killing all four occupants.
Somu, who represented the Madras North parliamentary constituency, had gone to the border districts in the Northeast for an inspection of Army units. He planned to leave for Calcutta from Tezpur and return to Chennai by flight the same night and participate the following day as chief guest in the National Book Week Celebrations.
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Tragic recount of Union Minister N.V.N. Somu's fatal helicopter crash in 1997, reflecting on his legacy and impact.
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