Pilot dead...
While 17 Hawks are operated by the navy, the remaining belong to the air force.
IAF inducted its first batch of Hawks in February 2008 to simplify the training of rookie fighter pilots from subsonic trainers to supersonic fighters.
Aviation journalist Angad Singh, who also witnessed the mid-air collision, said everything happened in a millisecond. “I turned to my left for a moment, and when I looked right, the jets had collided. One jet was lurching up and left and the other aircraft was going straight down,” he said.
“The lower aircraft disappeared behind the grandstand. And just as the upper one was descending and before it disappeared from my view, there were two flashes of ejection seats being fired. Barely a few seconds later, two chutes appeared,” Singh added.
SKAT pilots cleared for special maneuvers are the crème de la crème of the air force and their skills cannot be doubted even for a moment, said former IAF vice chief Air Marshal KK Nohwar, who now heads the Centre for Air Power Studies.
“SKAT pilots have to go through a rigourous selection process. The training that follows is even more rigourous before they are cleared for complex maneuvers involving nine planes. But accidents can happen as aviation is inherently a risky business,” said Nohwar.
Tuesday’s mid-air collision is probably the first after the unit was re-grouped in 2015 after a gap of four years. The Surya Kiran team with Kiran Mk II aircraft was wound up in 2011 but not before a series of accidents. In January 2009, Wing Commander RS Dhaliwal died in a crash near the team’s home base Bidar in Karnataka. Air Marshal RKS Bhadauria, who heads the IAF’S Bengaluru-based Training Command, said high risks are involved when an aerobatic team deploys nine aircraft, with the planes flying four to five metres away from each other. “In the mirror image manoeuvre, the margin of error is very low... We have to see whether it was execution error, bird hit or some other technical issue.” He confirmed that the SKAT will no longer be performing at this year’s air show as the IAF had to find out what went wrong. Aerospace majors will participate in the 12th edition of the five-day event to showcase their technologies and products that include fighters, helicopters and transport aircraft. The air force has ordered a probe into the accident. A court of inquiry will investigate the cause of the accident. “I’m aware of it (incident),” defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, but did not elaborate further when asked about the accident on the sidelines of an event.
Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot and several other politicians issued condolence messages shortly after the incident.
“We have agreed to contest the elections in Tamil Nadu under the leadership of the state chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami and deputy CM O Panneerselvam and at the national level as NDA [National Democratic Alliance] under the visionary leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. All alliance partners in Tamil Nadu will strengthen the NDA and all will work to sweep the polls,” Goyal added.
He was flanked by the Tamil Nadu chief minister and deputy CM as he made the announcement.
The BJP and the AIADMK have been partners before. In 1998, under J Jayalalithaa, the Dravidian party became a partner of the BJP and the alliance won 30 of the state’s 39 Lok Sabha seats. However, a year later, she withdrew support to the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led government (which lasted 13 months). The PMK is already a partner of the BJP (it rejoined the NDA in 2014, after exiting it in 2004; it was also part of the NDA between 1998 and 2004; in between, for some time, it was part of the United Progressive Alliance).
After the 2009 LS elections, this is the first time that the PMK has allied with the AIADMK. The PMK lost all the seats it contested in alliance with the AIADMK in 2009. In the 2014 general elections, the AIADMK, which contested alone, won 37 of the 40 seats (including Puducherry), while the BJP and PMK secured one seat each under the NDA. The Puducherry seat was won by the All India NR Congress, an ally of the NDA. The DMK and Congress did not win any seat.
The AIADMK is widely considered to be a so-called friendly party of the NDA; its leader S Thambi Durai is the deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha, and the party has usually supported the government’s legislative agenda.
After former Tamil Nadu chief minister and AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016, the BJP made a play in Tamil Nadu, where it has an insignificant presence. There has been talk of the party effecting a split in the AIADMK and getting one part to ally with itself, and of it convincing matinee idol Rajinikanth, who has indicated he will enter politics to form a broad alliance with it and the AIADMK.
On Sunday, Rajinikanth announced his decision to sit out the Lok Sabha elections and contest the next assembly elections in the state, which will be held in 2021.
He will also sit out the bypolls to 21 assembly constituencies in Tamil Nadu which will be held along with the Lok Sabha elections.
Political analyst K Elangovan said: “The PMK had engaged the DMK only to enhance its bargaining capacity with the AIADMK. But, it is doubtful whether Jayalalithaa would have been so generous in apportioning seven LS seats and an RS seat to the PMK, considering its size and electoral appeal. After the 2009 LS elections, she had kept the PMK off since she was convinced that a tie-up with that party alienated Dalits as well as non-vanniyar votes.”
Tami Nadu Congress president Alagiri described Tuesday’s developments as a “historical blunder committed by the PMK”.
“The PMK, which has been fighting for the cause of social justice, has teamed up with the BJP, which is bent upon destroying the social justice mechanism. The PMK has committed a historical blunder. It is very unfortunate,” he said.
The seat-sharing arrangement between the DMK and the Congress is likely to be on the same lines as that between the BJP and the AIADMK, analysts said, although the Congress, which is stronger in the state (and even ruled it till the late 1960s, before the entry of the Dravidian parties) could get a few more seats.
They expect the Congress to be given around 10 seats, the DMK to contest 25, and other partners, the remaining four.
Neither alliance includes the Amma Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, headed by TTV Dhinakaran, the nephew of Jayalalithaa’s aide Sasikala (currently serving time in a disproportionate assets case), who sees himself as the true inheritor of the former CM’S legacy. His party, represented by him, was the surprise winner in the by-election for Jayalalithaa’s RK Nagar constituency held in December 2017, which he won by a margin of 40,707 votes over his nearest rival of the AIADMK.