West News Wire: In an apparent midair accident that occurred during training some 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of the capital, New Delhi, two fighter planes of the Indian Air Force have crashed.
On Saturday morning, both aircraft took off from the Gwalior airbase, which is located approximately 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of where they crashed.
Officer Dharmender Gaur told the AFP news agency, “We have located the wreckage of one of the planes and found an injured pilot in the Pahadgarh jungles.
“We have despatched teams to locate the other plane, which has presumably fallen farther from the spot.”
Two of the three crew members from one jet, according to local administrator Ankit Asthana, were rescued and taken to the hospital.
The status of the third crew member was not immediately clear, and no details were released on the crew of the second plane.
The aircraft that crashed in India’s Madhya Pradesh state were a Sukhoi-30 and a Mirage 2000, ANI news agency said in a tweet, citing defence sources.
Saturday’s is the latest in a string of aviation accidents involving India’s military air fleet.
Five army soldiers were killed last October when their helicopter crashed in Arunachal Pradesh state, near the country’s militarised and disputed border with China.
It was the second military chopper crash in the northeastern state that month, coming weeks after a Cheetah helicopter came down near the town of Tawang, killing its pilot.
India’s defence chief, General Bipin Rawat, was among 13 people killed when his Russian-made Mi-17 helicopter crashed while transporting him to an air force base in December 2021.
