Aerial dogfight above Kashmir ends in mystery
When Wing Commander Abhinandan Vartaman of the Indian Air Force (IAF) spotted the enemy plane on his radar
2100m below him he had little hesitation.
Locking on to the Pakistani F-16 jet launching a provocative cross-border missile raid over Kashmir he told his patrol partners: ‘‘I am going after him.’’
The dogfight that followed ended with Vartaman’s MiG-21 fighter being shot down and the Indian airman captured by the Pakistanis.
What happened brought the two nuclear powers to the brink of conflict and sent shock waves across the region. It was the first time the nations had engaged in aerial combat since the 1971 war and the world held its breath.
Now the story of the dogfight can be told in detail for the first time.
The skirmish began at 9.45am on Wednesday above the Himalayan foothills when an Indian ground radar detected an unusual formation. Radar screens showed 24 Pakistani fighters flying provocatively close to the line of control that divides India and Pakistan.
Over the next 86 seconds, Wg Cdr Vartaman and his adversaries dodged and weaved as missiles whistled through the air, shattering the serenity of the Kashmir highlands.
Pakistan’s fighter group included eight advanced F-16s, four French Dassault Mirage-IIIs, four Chinese-origin JF-17 Thunder fighters and at least one Saab
2000 Erieye early warning and control platform.
The Indian Air Force (IAF) response was swift, scrambling a combat air patrol comprising two Russian Sukhoi Su-30 fighters, two upgraded Mirage-2000H’s and four upgraded Soviet-era MiG-21 Bison aircraft.
Indian military sources said the IAF joined the battle after three Pakistan Air Force (PAF) F-16s crossed the border and discharged laser-guided missiles at the Nowshera munitions depot,
8km inside Indian territory, but missed their target.
Vartaman’s objective was to position himself at an angle of 60 degrees to the F-16 in his sights, an ‘‘angle of attack’’ that would enable him to execute a ‘‘maximum impact’’ missile strike, the sources said.
In the meantime, the F-16 went into a steep ascent, climbing to around 8000m before hurtling back down in a move to shake off his pursuer. Flying at more than 900kmh, the PAF pilot repeated this manoeuvre, by which time Varthaman had positioned his MiG-21 behind the F-16. Having secured an advantageous position, the IAF pilot successfully fired his Russian short-range Vympel R-73 air-to-air missile at the F-16, scoring a hit.
But within moments Varthaman’s fighter was incapacitated by one or possibly two all-weather air-to-air missiles, forcing him to eject and parachute down. It was his misfortune to land on the wrong side of the line of control, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Panicked, he asked the villagers whether he was in India.
The youngsters responded by shouting Long Live Pakistan, prompting Varthaman to fire his service revolver in the air to scare them away.
When the villagers pelted him with stones he ran, firing more shots in the air. The crowd gave chase until their victim stumbled into a nearby shallow stream. He was shot in the leg and handed to the Pakistani authorities.
Over the next two days his moustached face would be front and centre of an information war that threatened to become something much worse.
Pakistan and India have been to war four times since independence in 1947 but the aerial combat was the first between nucleararmed states and the first between the air forces in 48 years.
The latest rise in tension started with a suicide bomb attack by Pakistan-based jihadists that killed 40 Indian troops last month. India retaliated with missile strikes at a militant base on the Pakistan side. Blood boiled between Narendra Modi, India’s Hindu nationalist prime minster, and Imran Khan, the former Pakistan cricket captain who now rules Pakistan.
But both leaders soon appeared to see sense, winding down tensions.
Following two nights in Pakistani captivity, Khan offered a ‘‘peace gesture’’ and Varthaman returned to India to a hero’s welcome on Friday, local time. By Saturday morning 300,000 Pakistanis had signed a petition calling for Khan to be rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize.
However, as the dust has settled, the identity of the PAF pilot and his fate and his F-16 remains shrouded in mystery, even though the IAF claims to have ‘‘conclusive evidence’’ of its downing.
India exhibited pieces of the downed PAF fighter that they say had fallen into Indian territory, but Islamabad has yet to own up to its loss. – Telegraph Group