Transport aircraft crew reunite after 20 yrs

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 29

Twenty years after they last met, former IAF officers, who had served on the Packet transport aircraft that had played a crucial military and diplomatic role in the IAF’s early days, got together for a reunion here today.

Over a 100 persons attended the meet. Four officers came from the US to attend the event. Prominent among them were Air Commodore HB Singh (retd), the eldest in the group. Others at the event included Air Marshal BK Pandey, former AOC-in-C, Training Command, Air Marshal AK Goel, who had commanded the Chandigarh Air Force Station as an Air Commodore from 1992 to 1994 and Air Vice-Marshal Harimohan.

The reunion was described as an occasion to sustain and nurture the spirit of comradeship and the joy of working as a team, and also a moment to remember those who had made sacrifices in the line of duty.

The US made C-119 Packet was inducted into the IAF with 12 Squadron, the IAF’s oldest transport squadron, in February, 1954, and over the course of the next 32 years, it flew heads of state across continents, transported dignitaries like the Dalai Lama, ferried enemy generals who had laid down arms and played the all important role of sustaining the armed forces in remote corners of the country.

Packets were also detailed for cross-border assignments and overseas missions. Until supplemented by AN-12s, Packets were the backbone of the IAF transport fleet, tasked with the air maintenance of forward posts. They played a vital role in the 1962 Indo-China war and the 1971 Indo-Pak war. A little known fact about the Packet is that it flew Pakistan’s General AAK Niazi and other prisoner-of-war generals to Nagpur after the end of hostilities.