To ensure the morale of the pilots does not suffer, flying activity continues without a pause. Pilots take to the sky like they would on any other day.
The wife and daughter of Wing Commander Namansh Syal, who died in the Tejas crash at the Dubai Air Show, bid him a tearful farewell as he was cremated in his native village.
The No 18 Squadron, formed in 1965 with the motto "Teevra aur Nirbhaya" meaning "Swift and Fearless," was earlier flying MiG 27 aircraft.
Namansh is survived by his father, mother, wife, who is also serving in the Air Force, and their six-year-old daughter.
However, the combat jet landed safely in the nearby Sulur Air Force station,
Every part of the equipment salvaged from the remanants of the Mi-17V5 helicopter will be carefully examined to find out what went wrong in the final moments of the flight from the Sulur air base in Coimbatore to the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington near Coonoor where General Rawat was headed.
The chopper took off at 11.48 am from the Sulur Air Base and was reported to be missing at around 12.22 pm, sources informed.
All the mangled remains of the helicopter, which crashed at Nanjapachatram near Coonoor in the Nilgiris district killing 14 including the country's first chief of defence staff Bipin Rawat have been collected from the site.
IAF pilots and crew dodged low hanging clouds, mist covered hills, steep valleys and landed on broken landing grounds to rescue civilians in Wayanad. In one mission, they had to descend vertically to get close to the survivors. IAF flew over 80 missions, saving lives and giving hope. This is how they did it.
The French Air and Space Force is carrying out a major long-range mission in the Indo-Pacific, code-named Pegase 22, from August 10 to September 18.
'Since the rotors of a helicopter rotate at very high RPMs, if they hit an obstacle -- for example a tree, wire or pole, the result is catastrophic.'
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited on Wednesday handed over the first LCA Tejas twin-seater aircraft to the Indian Air Force.
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Singh said in a statement in the Lok Sabha that all efforts were being made to save IAF Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor of the crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, who was on life support at the military hospital in Wellington.
The Nilgiris district police registered the FIR under Section 174 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) and ADSP Muthumanikam was appointed as the investigation officer, official sources said. A probe is underway.
Coordination between defence and civilian authorities has freed up airspace for commercial airlines in India, resulting in routes becoming shorter and costs coming down, apart from mitigating pollution. "Due to various restrictions of the military, only about 58 per cent of the Indian airspace was being utilised. It is close to 70 per cent now," said an official of the Airports Authority of India (AAI). Officials of the AAI said to date 119 routes had been shortened. Sources said since December 2020 the cumulative savings of airlines had been close to Rs 200 crore while there was a reduction in emission of around 45,000 tonnes of carbon.
"The LCA Tejas was deployed by the Indian Air Force on the western front close to the Pakistan border to take care of any possible action by the adversary there," government sources told ANI.
In one of the worst natural disasters in Kerala, at least 123 persons were killed and 128 injured in massive landslides triggered by torrential rains in Wayanad on Tuesday. With hundreds trapped under the debris, sparking fears of mounting fatalities, rescue agencies were racing against time to pull out any survivors.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday called on President Ram Nath Kovind and briefed him about the chopper crash near Coonoor that killed Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika and 11 armed forces personnel.
MiG-21s are one of the oldest aircraft in the Indian Air Force fleet. Most of them are on the verge of being phased out from the inventory of the air force.
Here is a timeline of what happened to the Indian Air Force helicopter carrying Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat and others that crashed near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday:
Sources said Singh has briefed Prime Minister Narendra Modi about the crash and the Indian Air Force chief has been asked to reach the site.
The Tejas is a fourth generation combat aircraft developed by Aeronautical Development Agency and the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. It is equipped with fly-by-wire flight control system, integrated digital avionics and multimode radar.
The mortal remains were brought to the Madras Regimental Centre where people paid floral tribute to General Rawat and other personnel.
Official sources said Singh will brief President Kovind about the accident as well as the situation arising out of it.
Out of the 13 people killed in the IAF helicopter crash near Coonoor on Wednesday, the mortal remains of only Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and Brig LS Lidder could be identified, officials said on Thursday.
It is learnt that the probe team led by Air Marshal Manavendra Singh examined all likely scenarios for the crash including possible human error or whether it was a case of disorientation by the crew when the helicopter was preparing for landing.
'With butterflies in our stomachs, but confident of our mission, we took off for Jaffna on the morning of 24 July 1987.' IAF Veteran Air Commodore Nitin Sathe recalls a conversation with Air Vice Marshal Harpal Singh Ahluwalia (retd), then a wing commander and mission leader for the clandestine operation.
The black box, comprising the flight data recorder (FDR) and the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), of the ill-fated Mi-17V5 helicopter of the Indian Air Force was recovered from the crash site on Thursday.
He joined the Indian Air Force in Hyderabad in 2000 and was currently posted at the Indian Airforce station in Sulur. Tamil Nadu.
'With deep regret, it has now been ascertained that Gen Bipin Rawat, Mrs Madhulika Rawat and 11 other persons on board have died in the unfortunate accident,' the IAF tweeted.
The inquiry teams had started their work on the very next day the incident took place. The statements are being recorded and in one or two cases, some people have changed their account of the incidents, they said.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday informed the Lok Sabha that IAF Group Captain Varun Singh, the lone survivor in the military chopper crash in Tamil Nadu, is on life support in the Military Hospital at Wellington, Tamil Nadu.
Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others were killed when an Indian Air Force helicopter carrying them crashed on Wednesday near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu in apparently foggy conditions, killing 13 people on board, the IAF and other officials said.
A force that can be deployed any time to protect sovereignty of the country is essential for effective deterrence which is the cornerstone of country's defence policy, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Tuesday.
The creation of a CDS has got the head right. Issues that were not talked about for years are now being discussed, points out Ajai Shukla.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday visited the Palam airbase in New Delhi and paid his last respects to Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and other 11 armed force personnel who lost their lives in a chopper crash in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
HAL is also integrating the Advanced Short Range Air-to-Air Missile onto the Mark 1A. Each Tejas will carry two of these missiles.
Chief of Air Staff Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari and Air Marshal Manvendra Singh who headed the tri-service investigation into the crash apprised Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on the findings of the probe on Wednesday.
The armed forces personnel whose bodies were identified in the last few hours are Junior Warrant Officer (JWO) Pradeep, Wing Commander P S Chauhan, JWO Rana Pratap Das, Lance Naik B Sai Teja and Lance Naik Vivek Kumar.
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