Mid-air crash
The jets were in a mirror manoeuvre — one flying inverted above the other — seconds before the collision, two journalists who witnessed the crash said.
Video footage of the collision shows that the nose of the aircraft on top brushed against the tail of the jet below before snapping off into pieces.
“I thought this can’t be happening. There was stunned, shocked silence all around us and then everyone moved at once. Emergency vehicles were already beginning to scream, speeding across from the other end of the runway,” said Saurabh Joshi, editor of the military affairs website Stratpost.com.
SKAT, equipped with Hawk Mk 132 trainers, carries out dazzling displays with its trademark nine-aircraft formation. Manufactured by British defence and aerospace giant BAE Systems, India ordered 123 Hawks of which 24 were delivered in flyaway condition while the remaining were licence-produced at Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). 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.