Air Chief takes to the skies in a helicopter to honour Kargil martyrs

KOLKATA: After leading a formation of Mig-21s in the ‘Missing Man’ formation at Air Force Station Bhisiana on Monday to honour the martyrs of Op Safed Sagar at Kargil in 1999, chief of the air staff Air Chief Marshal B S Dhanoa took to the skies in a Mi-17 V5 helicopter from Air Force Station Sarsawa in Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday.
This flight was also to pay tribute to a helicopter crew martyred during the conflict 20 years ago.

“It was on May 28, 1999 that a Mi-17 helicopter was brought down by enemy fire after carrying out successful operations in the Drass sector. Sqn Ldr R Pundhir, Flt Lt S Mulihan, Sgt R K Sahu and Sgt PVNR Prasad were martyred after the helicopter crashed. On Tuesday, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa led helicopters of the 152 Helicopter Unit in the ‘Missing Man’ formation even as wreaths were being laid at the Station War Memorial on the ground. Air Marshal R Nambiar, AOC-in-C, Western Air Command, also participated in the flypast. Lt Gen Y K Joshi, GOC,
14 Corps, was also present during the solemn occasion,” Indian Air Force (IAF) spokesperson Gr Capt Anupam Banerjee said.

Monday was the 20th death anniversary of Squadron Leader Ajay Ahuja whose Mig-21 was shot down by a shoulder-fired Stinger surface-to-air missile. Though Ahuja ejected safely, he was shot dead on the ground.
Three Stingers were fired on the Mi-17 that crashed the next day. This led the IAF to realise that the Pakistanis were armed with a large number of shoulder-fired Stingers and it changed its strategy, bringing the Mirage-2000s with laser-guided bombs into play.