The aircraft was allowed to move inside India as the air defence personnel knew who was inside the plane, they said.
The Indian Air Force (IAF), soon after receiving information about the sighting of unidentified flying objects near the Imphal airport on Sunday, scrambled its Rafale fighter aircraft to search for them.
The Rafale aircraft which have already arrived in Ambala would start ferrying to the Hashimara air base in next few days and the squadron would get operational by July 26, government sources told ANI in New Delhi.
An IAF spokesperson said in New Delhi that the MiG-27 took off from the Hashimara Air Base for a routine sortie and crashed within minutes of take-off.
In the first mishap of an Indian Air Force aircraft this year, a MIG-27 ground attack fighter crashed near Hashimara air base in North Bengal on Thursday, but the pilot managed to eject out safely. There was no report of any casualty or damage on the ground. The Air Force has instituted a Court of Inquiry to find out the causes of the crash. The aircraft got air borne at 12:30 pm for a routine training mission and crashed 10.2 kms east of the base at 12:40 pm.
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