Delhi: Border Security Force (BSF) has decided to overhaul its grounded fleet of the Mi171V helicopters, as per reports.
As per a report in India Today, the top brass of BSF believe that the choppers will be available for duty by early 2017.
These helicopters have been lying idle at New Delhi's Safdarjung heliport since last five years,
The news comes in the wake of the plane crash in the national capital on December 22 which killed nine BSF and one Sashatra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel on Tuesday.
The report said that five of the grounded choppers would be flown together to Kazan Helicopters which is a production facility under the state corporation Rostec and quoted Director General of the BSF, DK Pathak saying that all procedures towards getting it done was almost complete.
Mi17V1, which are grounded, was purchased in 2003 by the BSF under the Jammu and Kashmir Action plan.
As of now, only one of the six are said to be operational.
The BSF air wing currently has a fleet three fixed-wing planes and 15 helicopters.
Yesterday, the BSF had said that its crashed Superking aircraft was completely "airworthy" and was flying "very well" as it refuted allegations about any possible defect in the ill-fated plane.
