India’s Most Fearless

by Aroor, Shiv

  Sqn Ldr Sharma raised his tinted helmet visor and took a look around. As he did so, the whistling abruptly stopped. And then it happened again.

  ‘I looked up. The entire canopy had shattered and a part of it had blown off, with some parts crashing into the cockpit. I felt something smash into my shoulder and a sharp pain. It was a moment of shock. It took whole seconds for me to fully understand what had happened,’ says Sqn Ldr Sharma.

  It was a situation that is as difficult to describe as it probably is to imagine. Sqn Ldr Sharma, still strapped into his cockpit, was flying at a screaming velocity in a jet that had no canopy. He was now totally exposed to a headwind that smashed him straight in the face, pinning him back in his seat with brutal force. And the terrifying roar of the wind at that speed brought with it a new evil—since he was still flying faster than sound, much of the sound was still ‘behind’ him. By now, only one thing had become totally clear to Sqn Ldr Sharma: he could barely move his right shoulder from the pain, and the rest of his upper body was quickly sinking into numbness from the sub-zero temperatures at that altitude.

  Shaking away the shock, Sqn Ldr Sharma gathered himself and made a quick series of calculations, drawing on every bit of emergency training he had received as a flying cadet and rookie pilot, while his body steadily sank into a near-unresponsive state from the trauma and the temperature. He first did the one thing he knew he needed to before anything else: drop speed. The MiG-29 was still flying steady but shuddering now from the aerodynamic turbulence caused by the open canopy. It slowed down shakily as Sqn Ldr Sharma pulled back on the throttle.

  ‘Once I had gathered some of my thoughts, there was only one thing on my mind. I needed to recover the aircraft,’ Sqn Ldr Sharma says. ‘I remember thinking, “This is what we prepare and train for years. You never think it’ll ever happen to you. Then you realize why you learnt what you learnt.”’

  The pilot continued to pull back on his throttle, hoping he could regain some of the physical faculties that had been rendered numb by pain and cold by this time. Slowing down to a subsonic speed, a loud, shuddering bang jolted Sqn Ldr Sharma, but also allowed him to push himself into a higher state of alert. Sound had now caught up with the jet. And it was ever more deafening. Cold and pressure crushed the pilot, hitting him in the ears, making him feel that painful pinch that only thin, high-altitude air can. His upper body was now completely numb, having been subjected to whole minutes of wind blast. His head was being thrown around in every direction with every twitch of the jet, every whim of the air that roared into the cockpit.

  (The Indian Air Force’s formal description of the incident describes what Sqn Ldr Sharma went through at this time simply as ‘discomfort’.)

  Tumbling inside the cockpit and desperately trying to regain control, Sqn Ldr Sharma was now flying at about 500 kmph and had managed to descend to about 10,000 feet. He was still flying way too fast for comfort and there was literally nothing he could do about the cold—steady, insistent, like an icy sledgehammer against his face, neck and ribs.

  Then, for the first time since the canopy blew off his jet, Sqn Ldr Sharma tried to make contact with ground control. There was no way he could have tried earlier. There was simply too much of a wind roar to hear anything else. Even at this slower speed, he could hear nothing, as he repeatedly radioed his controllers, relaying what had happened in a high-pitched scream, hoping to somehow convey his situation to anxious colleagues in the control tower. Over and over, Sqn Ldr Sharma bellowed into his radio talkie, screaming that he was returning to base for an emergency landing. The pain in his shoulder was now so severe that his right hand had become virtually useless. It hung limp, and there was little he could do with his fingers. Not one muscle would flex.

  With his left hand, he continued to throttle down to 400 kmph and an altitude of a little less than 10,000 feet. Suddenly he realized he had another problem on his hands. The aircraft had proven capable of flying steady after the canopy blew off, but that didn’t mean it was safe for landing.

  Landing an aircraft puts a special toll on its airframe and metal skeleton. Sqn Ldr Sharma needed to be absolutely certain that the destroyed canopy hadn’t damaged any other part of the jet, including its tail, wings and crucial movable control surfaces. There was no way he could tell for sure. It was impossible for him to twist around in the cockpit to take a look. He would have to take a chance, he told himself. What he didn’t have to tell himself was that if something went wrong during the final approach or touchdown, he would have no time to punch out. Not a single moment.

  At this point, the Squadron Leader could have taken a decision to eject from the damaged MiG-29. Ambiguity over whether the jet was safe for landing was solid justification to abandon the aircraft and punch out. Nothing is more important than human life, and pilots know that. Sqn Ldr Sharma tried once again to see if he could be a little more certain that his aircraft wasn’t damaged. But he just couldn’t do it. He waited 10 seconds, quickly rehearsing his next move. Then he made his decision—to stay with the jet.

  With controllability checks barely complete, Sqn Ldr Sharma shaved the aircraft throttle back a little more. Ironically, slower and lower, the amount of discomfort and disturbance in the cockpit had only increased. The winds at this stage were more violent, the turbulence peaking near ground level as a result of denser sea-level air.

  ‘I was slapped left and right in the cockpit by the turbulence. I couldn’t hear much outside or on my radio talkie. I simply told ground control what I wanted to do,’ he remembers.

  The MiG-29, pretty much like a convertible now with its hood blown completely off, descended into final approach mode, the tarmac finally in sight. Sqn Ldr Sharma had begun to feel groggy from the pain in those final moments as he steered the aircraft into position for a landing. Miraculously, his yells from the wind-blasted cockpit had been heard, and airspace had been fully cleared around the normally busy fighter base that doubles up as a civilian airport.

  At about 6500 feet, Sqn Ldr Sharma realized with no small measure of delight that he was able to get a burst of warmth when he flew through clouds. He did as much of this as he could before taking the aircraft down for its final approach.

  As he came in to land, the ground controllers chimed in, informing Sqn Ldr Sharma that he would face 20 kmph head-on winds. ‘Feels like 200 kmph straight on my face,’ he screamed back at them, before lowering his wheels and executing a perfect landing on the Jamnagar tarmac. A rescue team and crash tender received him at the end of the strip, immediately pulling him from the jet and away from the area.

  In his stretcher, Sqn Ldr Sharma glanced up smiling at the men who carried him away. Beyond their silhouettes was the still-glistening Jamnagar sky. The warm air wore the numbness off Sqn Ldr Sharma’s injuries, bringing back a hot pain.

  Straight to the base hospital, the Sqn Ldr was given a full medical check-up for concussion and his damaged shoulder. It was a blunt-impact injury with internal consequences, but no flesh wound. From his hospital bed, Sqn Ldr Sharma phoned his wife, Deepika, at their home on the base. Up until that point, she had had no idea what had happened—and he was thankful for that.

  ‘She panicked. Anyone would. She rushed to see me. And it was only then that she knew everything was going to be okay,’ Sqn Ldr Sharma says. The injured pilot called his parents in Delhi. His father, Wing Cdr Sandeep Sharma, and mother, Neeta, were shocked and anxious about their son’s injuries, but they also hoped he would be able to fly again soon.

  ‘I heard only a full hour after Rijul was back on the ground,’ says the pilot’s father. ‘There was not a moment of pain or anxiety in Rijul’s voice. He was totally cool and calm. He flies high but keeps his feet on the earth.’

  His mother, Neeta, who had lived a life of anxiety waiting for her husband to return from his combat flights, braced herself before she spoke to her son.

  ‘I know my son. When he’s up there, he knows what he’s doing,’ she says.

  ‘R
ijul’s mother is very brave. She reacted the same way I did. She was worried, but only I could see it. Nobody else could have said she was worried,’ says Wing Cdr Sharma.

  Back at the Jamnagar base hospital, Sqn Ldr Sharma’s condition suggested that it might be a long stay in a recuperation ward. Amazingly, the young pilot proved fit enough to be discharged after only a few days. And a week later, he was back in a cockpit.

  ‘The first sortie after I recovered was special. There was that overpowering feeling that I had just been through something. But then you keep talking to yourself. There’s anxiety. But then you tell yourself it won’t be the same. And if it is, I’m trained for it. I’ve defeated it before,’ says Sqn Ldr Sharma.

  How did Sqn Ldr Sharma decide against ejecting from his stricken aircraft when the possibility of an unsafe landing was very real? A landing that could have killed him or rendered him incapable of flying for the rest of his days? Sqn Ldr Sharma is thoughtful. ‘Ejecting could have been an option. I mean, it definitely was an option. But I wanted to first figure out if the aircraft was controllable. If I had lost control, I would probably have had to eject. I thought if I could save myself and the aircraft—that needed to be my priority.’

  India’s MiG-29 fleet is currently in a phased upgrade programme that makes the aircraft an ever more formidable multirole warplane. The aircraft that Sqn Ldr Sharma flew that day hadn’t been upgraded yet. While safety is something the Indian Air Force takes very seriously, and spends enormous resources in zeroing in on the reasons for accidents, investigations are never simple affairs.

  Sqn Ldr Sharma has a message for new pilots and those who aspire to join the Air Force.

  ‘I have to convey a message to my younger brothers and sisters. I’d say that fighter flying is a wonderful profession, perhaps the best anyone can ever choose. There is an inherent risk that makes the profession challenging. Don’t ever let a situation overwhelm you. You have been trained to tackle any eventuality. These are the times to put all those years of hard work and training to use. Even when I’m born again, I would like to be a fighter pilot.’

  Sqn Ldr Sharma has been flying regularly since the incident. He was awarded a Vayu Sena Medal (Gallantry) on Republic Day for his courage, skilfulness and fortitude in the cockpit, saving not only his own life, but an expensive piece of national property—the MiG-29.

  ‘I had no hesitation in jumping back into a cockpit after what happened,’ says Sqn Ldr Sharma.

  ‘As my father told me when I was joining the NDA, “Lead your life. Don’t let life lead you.”’

  Note: This chapter appeared first as a post on LivefistDefence.com

  13

  ‘Every Chopper Pilot’s Worst Nightmare’

  Squadron Leader Vikas Puri

  Shillong, Meghalaya

  12 March 2016

  ‘Her voice is soothing to the ears. But nothing she says is pleasant—especially if you’re airborne.’

  At a height of 4500 feet above the Brahmaputra, Natasha’s voice pierced through the helicopter cockpit. Her tone was tailored to just the right pitch of matter-of-factness to not jolt the pilots, but with a polite insistence that could not be ignored. As the voice of the cockpit warning system built into the helicopter by its Russian makers, Natasha’s was the one female voice no pilot ever wanted to hear.

  ‘Service tank pump failed,’ the voice, inflected with a Russian accent, called out.

  Sqn Ldr Vikas Puri, lead pilot of the Mi-17 helicopter, heard Natasha clearly. On reflex, he glanced down at his cockpit instrument panel for details about her warning. A pump feeding fuel to the helicopter’s 2 main engines had malfunctioned.

  In a second, Sqn Ldr Puri had jogged through the flying manual in his mind, like all pilots do. Natasha was programmed to call out any problem the helicopter’s systems encountered, big or small. And this was not a big one. The pilot knew that a service tank pump failure was not a major emergency that required drastic action like an emergency landing. Built with several layers of rugged safeguards, the Mi-17’s engines had additional pumps to draw fuel in. Everything was okay. There was no need to worry.

  That would change in the next 30 seconds. The warning he had just dismissed would escalate into a terrifying anomaly that would see the 13-tonne helicopter abruptly fall out of the sky like a stone, headed straight for the marshy Brahmaputra valley below.

  It had been a perfect morning to lift off that Saturday, 12 March 2016. Sunny but mild, just after dawn, an uninterrupted, clear sky loomed over the Shillong airfield. The beautiful state capital of Meghalaya, also headquarters to the Indian Air Force’s Eastern Air Command, is nestled in the Khasi Hills at an altitude of nearly 5000 feet. The weather that day could not possibly have been better for the flight bound to the North-east, to forward areas in the frontier state of Arunachal Pradesh and its long border with China-controlled Tibet. It was just another mission for Sqn Ldr Puri and his crew that morning, but their cargo, and intended destination, was anything but ordinary.

  The man who was on board the Mi-17 that day was none other than the head of the Indian Air Force’s Eastern Air Command. Air Marshal Chandrashekharan Hari Kumar was to be flown to 2 newly revived and rebuilt advanced landing grounds at Ziro and Along in Arunachal Pradesh to inaugurate them and declare them open for flying operations.

  Having the Air Marshal on board that particular flight gave the helicopter its special radio call sign that day: EASTERN 1.

  The 2 airfields on the China border in Arunachal Pradesh were among 8 that the Indian Air Force had identified in 2009 to bring back to life after they had fallen into disuse half a century before. Apart from giving military planners welcome additional air access to the North-east, the revival plan was also intended to be a direct counter to China’s aggressive border infrastructure build-up. A valuable benefit was that airfields provided new avenues for tourism into one of the most arrestingly beautiful parts of India. The Rs 1000-crore project involved giving the 8 defunct airfields new runways, air traffic control towers, buildings to handle cargo and passengers and other infrastructure for flight operations.

  Air Marshal Hari Kumar, a highly qualified fighter pilot who had once commanded a front-line combat aircraft squadron, was fully aware of the significance and value of the inauguration he was to oversee that day. With him were his wife, Devika, and several officers from his staff, including Air Vice Marshal Manvendra Singh, a qualified chopper pilot.

  Sqn Ldr Puri and his crew had risen early that day in Shillong, and headed straight for the airfield to prepare the Mi-17 before their VIP passengers arrived. A ‘ground run’ was conducted where the engines were switched on and the helicopter repositioned on the apron, ready for its guests.

  ‘The weather was great that morning. But we didn’t have a moment to lose,’ Sqn Ldr Puri remembers. ‘A violent western disturbance was likely to hit the Arunachal valley the following day, so we literally had only that day to carry out the commitment. If we missed the window, it was certain to be delayed by about a week.’

  The workhorse Mi-17 successfully passed its ground tests, with all systems reporting normal and ready for flight. As the crew waited, Sqn Ldr Puri did a final check with the meteorological office at the Shillong base for a weather update along the path they would be flying to the border areas of Arunachal Pradesh.

  ‘Though the reported weather at our intended destination was still turbulent but improving, we decided to play it safe,’ says Sqn Ldr Puri, who briefed his crew and reported a final flight plan to the Shillong air traffic control. The Mi-17 would head towards Arunachal, but would make a stop at Tezpur in Assam along the way and wait there until the weather at the forward landing grounds had improved. This was as normal a ‘Plan-B’ as there ever could be for an air force fully used to contingency plans driven by fickle weather and terrain in their area of operations.

  By 0720 hours, Air Marshal Hari Kumar, his wife and the 10-member staff boarded the Mi-17. Fifteen minutes later, the helicopter lifted o
ff, climbing quickly to 6500 feet. It safely exited the Khasi Hills and arrived in the airspace over the plains of the Brahmaputra. Since this was an early flight and the airspace was largely clear, ground control in Assam cleared Sqn Ldr Puri and his crew to fly directly to Tezpur without any cautionary diversions.

  The Mi-17 in military configuration is not particularly suitable for VIP transport. Rugged and functional, its large cabin does not shield its occupants from the steady roar of the main rotor or the intense vibrations that course through the machine during flight. But the Indian Air Force loves the Mi-17’s toughness, a factor that has seen the government make this Russian-built machine the backbone of India’s military chopper strength. With its familiar grey silhouette, the Mi-17 is deployed across the country and on every conceivable mission—from flood rescue in Srinagar to being used as a gunship for assault drills during military exercises and casualty evacuation operations in Maoist hotbeds. It has proven tough enough to even be deployed abroad for India’s UN peacekeeping missions in Africa. The Mi-17 cruising that Saturday morning over the Brahmaputra was as reliable a chopper as they come.

  ‘Everything was copybook perfect. I handed over controls to my co-pilot, Flight Lt. Adarsh Gupta, and picked up the map I had organized for the flight,’ Sqn Ldr Puri remembers. It was a highly detailed map comprising a thick stack of laminated sheets of paper that opened out to the size of a bedsheet. It was far from handy.

  In the cabin behind the cockpit, a member of Sqn Ldr Puri’s crew welcomed the passengers on board and passed around bottles of water and Tetra Paks of juice. Noise from the rotor blades ensured that conversation of any kind was impossible in the cabin. The 12 passengers sipped water and juice, and periodically looked out of the Mi-17’s blister windows at the glistening river 6500 feet below.