Mananhana (Hoshiarpur), December 4
A MiG-29 crashed into fields on outskirts and border of three villages -Mananhana, Chela and Data- this afternoon.
No loss of life was
reported. The aircraft pilot, Sq Ldr Jawahar Mohammed, ejected safely just seconds before the aircraft nose-dived at around 12.45 p.m.
The aircraft had taken off from the Adampur Air Force Station at around 12. 35 p.m. The wreckage of the aircraft, including badly twisted wings, engine parts and the pilot’s seat was seen scattered in an area spreading over 1500 sq yards.
Villagers said they saw an aircraft in the sky with smoke and flames billowing out. Even as most of them ran out of their houses for safety, others climbed onto the rooftops to watch the “fire show” unfolding in the skies.
“Everybody was awe-struck to see the aircraft catching flames in mid air and hovering over and around the village. All of us came out of our houses out of curiosity and with an urge to find any available ‘safe’ place. We apprehended that it might crash into the settlement,” said Harbans Lal, in whose fields the aircraft landed.
According to Deepak, a shopkeeper who claimed to have seen the aircraft catching fire, said the pilot jumped after over one minute after it caught fire as he possibly delayed self-ejection to save the village by steering the aircraft to some safer place.
Senior officials of the Indian Air Force, who were present at the site, expressed inability to give any information about the incident “before completion of an exhaustive” enquiry.
After his safe landing Sq Ldr Jawahar Mohammed was taken to a private hospital in this village by a farmer Harnek Singh.
According to Parminder Singh, Sarpanch of Kotla village, after regaining consciousness the pilot took a mobile phone from a villager and informed about his well-being to his wife. “Later, he went to a side to probably inform his headquarters as after this a helicopter came and took him back,” said Mr. Parminder Singh.
“Oh! it was terrifying to see the burning aircraft coming up and down,” said Jasbir Kaur and Paramjit Kaur, plus two students, of the government elementary school in the village, where teachers had ordered students to come out in the open as they saw burning aircraft hovering over the village.
