IAF jets use Saifai airstrip for drill

In a first for the Indian Air Force (IAF), the country or any village in India, two Mirage 2000s fighter jets were test landed at and flown back from the Saifai village airstrip on Saturday.

Saifai is the ancestral village of Samajwadi Party (SP) president Mulayam Singh Yadav.

District magistrate (DM), Etawah, Nitin Bansal confirmed the IAF’s Saturday venture by Central Air Command but said he was not aware as to which air base the two jets came and went back to.

The fighter jets, reportedly, belonged to the Mirage 2000 squadron based at Gwalior air base.

Sources said the landing and take-off was pre-planned and the Air Force had given prior intimation about it to the Etawah district administration.

The DM and some officers were present during the event but the IAF had prohibited any photography or videography of the exercise.

With the successful test, Bansal said, the IAF might use the airstrip during emergencies or for such exercises in future.

The two Mirage 2000s landed at 11.30am on Saturday and took off at 12.30pm.

The IAF had deployed substantial support staff at the Saifai airstrip that inspected, studied and prepared the airstrip before the landing and studied it after the take-off.

Mirage 2000 is a single-engine fourth generation jet fighter manufactured by Dassault Aviation, France. India is the only country in the subcontinent to have it.

Saifai perhaps is the only village in the country to have an airstrip. In the past, even a Boeing 737 has landed here.

On January 8 this year, as many as nine private jets with stars like Hrithik Roshan, Parineeti Chopra, Jacqueline Fer nandez, Sushant Singh Rajput, Vaani Kapoor, Rhea Chakraborty, Natasha, Lauren Khan and Richa Chadha landed here for the closing ceremony of Saifai village fest.

The strip is also frequently used by politicians such as Mulayam and Akhilesh.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi is said to have used it.

Earlier this week, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav had a meeting with Central Air Command delegation where he agreed for a highway runway of Air Force on Agra-Lucknow expressway —a first in the country.

In the meeting, the Air Force also said that it would help Uttar Pradesh in training its State Disaster Response Force.