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NEW DELHI: Two Indian Air Force fighter jets collided in mid-air Saturday, killing one pilot, while on drills south of the capital, New Delhi.
A Russian-made Sukhoi Su-30 carrying two pilots and a French-built Mirage 2000 piloted by a third crashed. Both planes took out in the morning from the Gwalior air base, around 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of where they crashed.
“The planes were on a routine operational flying training assignment,” the country’s air force said in a statement, adding that one of the three pilots died. It was also said that an inquiry was ongoing to ascertain the reason for the crash.
From the area of the crash, police inspector Dharmender Gaur told AFP that another pilot had been recovered alive but injured in the forests of Padargarh, around 300 kilometers away (185 miles).
“We found the debris of one of the planes,” stated the officer. “The other plane is expected to have fallen further away from the scene, and we have dispatched teams to find it.”
Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan tweeted that local authorities have been directed to cooperate with the air force’s rescue and relief efforts.
