A court of inquiry has been ordered into the accident, one of several over the past few years to hit the Indian armed forces.
Kutch: A senior Indian Air Force (IAF) officer was killed Tuesday as a Jaguar fighter jet crashed soon after takeoff from Gujarat’s Jamnagar airbase.
The aircraft, being piloted by Air Commodore Sanjai Chauhan, the Air Officer Commanding at the Jamnagar Air Force Station, was on a routine training mission when it crashed in Bareja village around 10.30 am, defence spokesperson Lt Col Manish Ojha said.
Some cows grazing at the crash site were killed after being hit by the jet’s debris, locals said.
A court of inquiry has been ordered into the accident, one of several over the past few years to hit the Indian armed forces.
In January this year, a MiG-29K fighter jet of the Navy had veered off the runway at Goa airport during takeoff, causing the aircraft to catch fire, but there were no casualties. ThePrint had reported at the time that the MiG-29K had been marred by a series of problems since its induction in 2010.
In February, two IAF pilots were killed in Majuli when the Microlight Virus SW-80 (a helicopter) they were piloting crashed minutes after it took off on a routine sortie, defence ministry officials said.
In March this year, the government informed Parliament that 31 aircraft of the IAF alone had been involved in accidents over the past four years.
Tributes to Air Commodore Chauhan, from colleagues and journalists, flooded social media soon after the crash was reported.
-With PTI inputs