"We have located the wreckage of one of the planes and found an injured pilot in the Parhadgarh forests," officer Dharmender Gaur told AFP.

"The other plane has likely fallen further away from the site and we have sent teams to locate it."

The crash is the latest in a string of aviation accidents involving India's military air fleet.

Five army soldiers were killed last October when their helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh state, near the country's militarised and disputed border with China.

It was the second military chopper crash in the state that month, coming weeks after a Cheetah helicopter came down near the town of Tawang, killing its pilot.

India's defence chief, General Bipin Rawat, was among 13 people killed when his Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter crashed while transporting him to an air force base in December 2021.