All six people on board a private helicopter flying from Badrinath to Dehradun were killed on Friday afternoon when the aircraft crashed into a hillside near Joshimath in Uttarakhand's Chamoli district, police said.

The helicopter, operated by Trans Bharat Aviation Pvt. Ltd., had taken off from the Badrinath helipad at about 1.14 pm, bound for the Sahastradhara heliport in Dehradun. It lost communication while flying over the Joshimath valley, and crashed at around 2.20 pm near Chai village, close to the JP Power House and Marwari Bridge, officials said.

Chamoli Superintendent of Police Surjit Singh Panwar confirmed that all six occupants had died and that their bodies had been located at the crash site. The dead were the pilot, Captain Himanshu Sabharwal of Delhi, and five passengers, all men from Bengaluru. A joint rescue operation involving the district administration, the State Disaster Response Force, police and Army personnel was launched after the crash was reported.

Weather under scrutiny, cause not yet known

Officials have not yet established what caused the crash. Television reports suggested bad weather may have been a factor, and the India Meteorological Department had issued an orange alert for Chamoli district on Friday, warning of thunderstorms accompanied by lightning, hail and gusty winds of 40-50 kmph in isolated places. The Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (UCADA) said the aircraft's tracking system stopped registering its location as it flew over the Joshimath valley.

As a precautionary measure, UCADA ordered the grounding of Trans Bharat Aviation's entire fleet following the accident. The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is expected to probe the crash, officials said.

A lifeline route for pilgrims

Helicopter services are a lifeline on the Char Dham pilgrimage circuit, ferrying pilgrims between remote Himalayan shrines and the state capital in minutes rather than hours on mountain roads. Badrinath, one of the four shrines, sits high in the Garhwal Himalaya, and the Badrinath-Dehradun route crosses some of the most challenging flying terrain in the country, where weather can change rapidly.

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said his office had received information about the crash near a village in the Joshimath area and that rescue teams had been rushed to the site. Joshimath lies about 290 km northeast of Dehradun.

Friday's crash is the latest in a series of helicopter accidents in Uttarakhand's pilgrimage corridors in recent years, and it is likely to renew scrutiny of mountain flying safety, weather protocols and operator oversight as the Char Dham season draws on.