New Delhi, Mar 17 (IANS): Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) DG Kuldeep Singh on Thursday said that evacuation of injured personnel by helicopters depends on many factors including weather conditions.

Noting that evacuation of troopers is a technical issue and it depends on visibility and meteorological conditions and due to this sometimes the airlifting of the jawans becomes impossible, he said.

"This matter was raised and discussed with the Air Force high officials," Singh said.

He stated that the pilots of the choppers are the best placed to decide whether the chopper can fly or land in a given situation. The pilots are well trained and fly day or night. If the weather conditions are good and the visibility is clear, they operate the choppers, he added.

Talking about the injury to Assistant Commandant Vibhor Singh who was badly injured in an IED blast in an anti-naxal counter operation in Bihar's Aurangabad, the CRPF chief said that he could not be airlifted because of the poor visibility near the encounter site. Due to the bad weather conditions he was not airlifted on the same night as the pilots expressed their inability to fly citing the weather conditions. We cannot question the pilots as they have to fly and they understand the prevailing meteorological conditions better.

He added that at many places in the Left Wing Extremism theatre in Chhattisgarh, the helipads have been equipped with lighting facilities and we are doing it in many more places.

The CRPF officials said that the Force has hired a helicopter especially for evacuation operations in Chhattisgarh while it is also using one hired by the Jammu and Kashmir Police in Srinagar region, apart from the BSF and Air Force choppers. Most of the BSF choppers are used by the CRPF in their operations.