An Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot escaped narrowly on Friday after the Jaguar aircraft he was flying developed a snag and crashed near an air base here in Gujarat.
The unnamed pilot, a Squadron Leader, was returning to the Jamnagar Air Force base after a routine training mission when he detected the snag while landing, an IAF spokesperson said.
As per sources, the plane rolled for about 500 feet beofer the rocket-assisted ejection threw the pilot out. The plane then rolled for another 100 feet and slipped into the rough alongside the tarmac.
The pilot managed to escape safely, but there has been no word on the extent of his injuries.
The spokesperson said that a court inquiry has been ordered. This crash is the second, after a crash of an IAF Jaguar three days ago killed its pilot - Air Commodore Sanjai Chauhan.
Sanjai Chauhan was killed after his plane went down in the Kutch region of northwestern Gujarat on Tuesday. He had also taken off from the Jamnagar Air Force base for a routine training mission. The cause of the June 5 crash is still unknown.
The Jaguar aircraft was built under license from the Anglo-French consortium SEPECAT and has been in service for four decades now. The Air Force has been upgrading the system with modern avionics, radar systems and engines to prolong their service life.
The Air Force has been facing several issues due to ageing fighter planes, which were expected to be alveiated by the deal with Frace for Rafael fighter planes, but that is yet to come to fruition.
The Rafel deal would see the Air Force buy 110 fighter planes, one of the largest deals in history. Under the deal, a large percentage of the planes would be manufactured in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Make In India scheme.
[With inputs from ANI]
