Daroli Khurd (Jalandhar), May 8
A MiG 29 fighter aircraft, on a routine sortie, caught fire and crashed at Daroli Khurd village soon after it took off from the Adampur airbase, 3 km away from here, today.
The pilot, Lieut Vikram Chauhan from the Indian Navy, realising that the aircraft had caught fire turned it away from the residential area before ejecting out safely almost 100 metre away from the debris. He was immediately flown to military hospital at Jalandhar in a helicopter where his condition is said to be stable.
The aircraft is said to have got
entangled with an electricity wire before the crash. Fire engines from the defence forces, Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur were pressed into service to douse the flames.
Eyewitnesses said they heard a loud noise at 3.45 pm minutes before the crash. “When I came out, I saw an aircraft with huge fire at the tail coming down towards the village. The plane would have crashed on the houses had the pilot not turned it towards the fields”, said Harbhajan Singh, an elderly resident of the village.
“I was in the fields near here when I saw the burning aircraft crashing down. Minutes later the pilot too landed in a parachute. He seemed perfectly okay from his posture”, said Malkiat Singh from the adjoining Damundi village. Hundreds of curious residents from the neighbouring villages, especially children, had gathered at the accident site.
Adampur PRO, Wg Cdr Balwinder Singh, confirmed that the aircraft had caught fire after taking off for a routine sortie. He said it apparently seemed to have happened due to a technical snag.
