Air warrior Varun loses final battle

Group Captain’s mortal remains to be flown to Bhopal today

Bengaluru:Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor of the IAF helicopter crash earlier this month that claimed the lives of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and 12 others, died early on Wednesday. A decorated air warrior, Group Captain Varun Singh died at the Air Force’s Command Hospital here on Wednesday, a week after he was seriously injured in the crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu. He had been on life support, according to officials, and had undergone extensive skin graft surgery.

His mortal remains are to be moved from the hospital on Thursday at 10 am to Air Force station Yelahanka, where wreaths would be laid as a mark of respect to the departed, and later flown to Bhopal by a service aircraft on Thursday, IAF sources said. The funeral is planned on December 17, they added. Initially hospitalised at Wellington in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu with 80 per cent burns, Singh was shifted to the Command Hospital here on December 9. Singh’s father Col. K . P. Singh had been very optimistic about his survival as he had earlier survived a life-threatening emergency while flying a Tejas aircraft during a sortie last year. Singh’s younger brother Lt Commander Tanuj Singh is a serving officer in the Indian Navy.