Digvijaysingh Rajput

Just to refresh our memory and let the younger lot know, there was a similar situation at Timber Trail (HP) in 1992. The height, distance and terrain were much more challenging. And it was almost sunset when the incident happened. 10 tourists, including a 4-YO kid, had got stranded when, having reached the drop off point at the hilltop resort, they suddenly saw one of the cables breaking and the trolley beginning to slide backwards. One passenger was thrown out since he was in the process of deboarding and landed close to the docking station, while the trolley attendant panicked and jumped to his death when his head hit a rock below. The trolley reached a speed of more than 200 kmph while sliding back, with sparks sparking on the cable. A twist of luck, wherein the broken cable got entangled, stopped the trolley that was now suspended 1500 ft above the valley floor below. An SF officer, who had lost one of his parents a couple of days back (I think his mom had left him for heaven), took it on himself to rescue the stranded tourists. Two brave pilots of the IAF flew him onto the stranded trolley. It was by the late afternoon the next day that the young officer winched himself down and stood on top of the trolley. That was one messy situation wherein they had been stuck for a long time, with one of the passengers suffering from diarrhoea. Needless to say, they had survived the longest night of their life with no water or food and no radio communications. The officer, having briefed the tourists about the drill of winching by a Mi-17 heptr (there was no possibility of getting them down to the valley floor because of such a height), started securing them one by one as the pilots hovered above the trolley, with the wind draft from the rotors shaking the cabin violently. Soon, it was dark, and rescue had to be paused with five people still in the trolley. Fearing that the officer would now leave them to return the next morning, as the stranded tourists looked up to the officer with despair in their eyes, he spoke those immortal words: 'I have two kids at home and the fact that I am staying on means there is nothing to worry." And he volunteered to stay with them for the night. The operation ended the next morning, with the officer winching himself up in the end. Let's now have the names of those heroes: Maj Ivan Joseph Crasto (awarded Kirti Chakra); later Colonel. Group Captain Fali Homi Major (awarded Shaurya Chakra); later IAF Chief. Flt Lt P Upadhyay (awarded Vayu Sena Medal); later Group Captain. I don't know if that kid later joined forces, or if two honeymoon couples who would later become parents did send their kid(s) to forces, but such stories need to be told and retold, for no civilisation can have a future if its past is forgotten. @adgpi @IAF_MCC