Pilot avoided crashing into inhabited area in Jodhpur

JODHPUR: An ageing MiG-27 upgrade fighter aircraft crashed in an agricultural field near village Jaleli Fauzdar in Banar police station area, here on Tuesday morning. While the pilot of this single-seater aircraft ejected safely, seconds before the ill-fated plane nose-dived, the air force has ordered a court of inquiry into the matter.
Defence spokesperson Col. Sombit Ghosh said, “The aircraft was on a routine sortie on Tuesday morning and crashed minutes after taking off from the Jodhpur Air Force station at the Roop Singh ki Dhani.”
“The pilot succeeded in ejecting seconds before the crash.He was secured by the air force officials and was rushed to the hospital. A court of inquiry has been ordered into the matter,” said Ghosh.
The pilot, whose name has not been disclosed, had sensed some technical snag in the plane and took a sudden turn when it caught fire, aiming it to an open field with no human or structural presence, in order to avoid crashing into an inhabited area.
According to the eye witnesses, they spotted two jets in the sky, of which one suddenly took a turn and caught fire before crashing in a field. They said that by the time the pilot turned the plane directing it to a deserted place, it had come too low, but the pilot waited and jumped out after turning it away from the inhabited area.
“We saw two planes flying over our village. Suddenly, one of them took a turn and caught fire. It crashed in an agricultural field and was completely destroyed, while the pilot ejected with a parachute and landed safely,” said an eye witness, Roopa Ram.
The villagers rushed to check for the pilot, who was found in a nearby field, about 200-300 metres from the debris of the plane, and ensured that he was safe and unhurt.
“I asked him to confirm if he was safe. He responded by adjusting his helmet. Then I asked him for water but he refused to have it without medical check-up,” said Kali Devi, in whose field, the pilot had landed.
Before this, a MiG-27 had crashed in city’s Kuri Bhagtasni area in a house, in June 2016. The pilot in this incident had also ejected safely after trying hard to turn it away from a populated area. But the abandoned plane’s wing hit a building and drifted a little into a house.
The MiG category fighter planes, that once ruled the Indian sky, have now turned completely obsolete despite sporadic upgrades. According to an estimate, the Indian air force has lost a dozen MiG-27 aircraft, in past one decade, on account of technical defects.
Though, the MiG-27 are slated to be phased out from operation, two squadrons of this ageing plane are operational at Jodhpur Air Force Station. Before this, one squadron of the fighter jet from West Bengal’s Hashimara station had been phased out in December 2017.
According to the sources, initially, they had to be phased out completely by 2015 but delay in procurement of its replacements deferred the deadline by 2017.
In a renewed deadline, the only two squadrons of this “flying coffin”, operational at Jodhpur, are scheduled to be phased out by 2024, according to sources.