by Aroor, Shiv
With Sqn Ldr Tamta flying and Wing Cdr Chauhan the designated weapons systems officer in the rear cockpit, the big fighter, India’s largest, was fitted out with 18 100-kg bombs—6 on each wing and 6 slung on to hard points on the aircraft’s belly. The 2 men had been cleared for a night training flight that involved a bombing run from an altitude of 7000 feet.
It was still cold in the Thar and the sun was almost out of sight when their jet roared down the main runway of Jodhpur’s Air Force Station. At their home in the desert base, Gaurav’s wife, Avantika, knew he would be flying that evening. He flew every day. Like most family members of pilots, she heard the roar of the Sukhoi’s twin monster NPO Saturn AL-31FP engines and made a mental note that her husband was now airborne. A veneer of anxiety would creep in, and stay until she could hear the sound of the jet returning to base. This was routine.
In the air over the Thar, Wing Cdr Chauhan and his mate quickly put the Su-30 in a climb to about 6900 feet, their designated cruising altitude. As Sqn Ldr Tamta manoeuvred the jet from the front seat, in the rear cockpit, Wing Cdr Chauhan quickly programmed parameters for the bombing run. The drill would see the bombs released over the Chandan desert range.
The Su-30 wasn’t alone over the Thar that evening. Other aircraft were also airborne, rehearsing for the final event 4 days later. Wing Cdr Chauhan knew that he was sharing airspace with 2 confirmed aircraft. One was a Jaguar, piloted by Wing Cdr Chauhan’s course mate from the Academy, also on a bombing run. The other was the Israel-built Heron surveillance drone that had been deployed to film the bombing runs with its thermal night-vision camera and synthetic aperture radar.
Wing Cdr Chauhan used the aircraft’s mission computer to select waypoints, giving the jet map markers to navigate through for the weapons release. The markers would be carefully chosen to account for the long arc the bombs would trace before hitting the ground. The navigation data punched in, the jet was switched to autopilot for the run. For the duration of the weapons release, the pilot, Sqn Ldr Tamta would be required to press the fire trigger on his flight stick. When Sqn Ldr Tamta pressed the button and held it, the first bombs should have begun to drop.
They didn’t.
The Su-30 is a big truck of a jet. It doesn’t shudder easily. But when Sqn Ldr Tamta pushed down on that trigger, Wing Cdr Chauhan experienced 2 things: (1) an extremely bright flash of light—bright enough that he could only see white when he closed his eyes for a moment; and (2) the heavy jet was jerked violently off its level course. It became instantly clear to both men that something catastrophic had just happened.
The bombs on the fighter’s right wing had detonated without detaching, instantly destroying much of the wing and sending high-speed debris smashing at the fighter canopy and into the cockpit.
These few seconds would later be described by the Indian Air Force in a report thus:
[This was followed by] the aircraft being engulfed in a large ball of fire and breaking up into several parts in mid-air. The explosion on the right wing caused it to be ripped off at the root and the aircraft viciously spiralled downwards in an uncontrolled trajectory with a very high rate of descent.
Wing Cdr Chauhan felt shards of the shattered canopy crash into his face. His helmet visor had shattered too, with a piece of it cutting him right between the eyes, but he wouldn’t know it at the time. The thing that changed the most in the cockpit was the noise. Through the vortex of the fractured canopy, a deafening whoosh of high-speed wind made all communication between the pilots impossible. Sitting a few feet apart, the pilots could not talk.
As Wing Cdr Chauhan and Sqn Ldr Tamta fought to regain control of the Sukhoi, which had by this time begun to break up mid-air, something was heading straight for them through the darkness over the Thar. If there was one thing worse than sitting strapped into an aircraft that had just lost a wing and nearly all its structural strength, here it was: an aircraft, heading straight in their direction.
The two would later learn it was the Heron drone that was about to crash right into them. But before the drone overshot them, the Su-30 had lurched into a steep nose-down posture, turning in a loose rightward spiral, heading towards the Thar below. The wind through the canopy fracture brought with it the whiff of explosive—the first real confirmation to Wing Cdr Chauhan that the weapons had detonated on the aircraft.
By this time, Wing Cdr Chauhan had attempted at least thrice to punch out of the doomed jet. But the heavy turbulence and wind blast had put him fully out of reach of his ejection handle. The fighter had by now attained a dangerously high rate of descent. In a final effort, Wing Cdr Chauhan pushed with everything he had against the railing of the cockpit, burning hot at the time, and managed to pull the ejection handle. Seconds later, both pilots blasted out of the Su-30 in their NPP Zvezda K-36DM ejection seats, sideways and outward, their parachutes deploying instantly at that depleting altitude.
Wing Cdr Chauhan held on tight to his parachute cord, too shaken to even try shifting his position to locate Sqn Ldr Tamta who, as it turned out, was not far behind him and descending from a little higher. As they sank into the darkness over the desert, a fresh wave of fear engulfed them.
Wing Cdr Chauhan remembered the Jaguar his course mate was flying in the area at the time, and knew that it was probably just about primed for its own bombing run. He said a silent prayer, hoping that ground control had managed to figure out what had happened and instructed the Jaguar to keep its bombs and peel away from the area. Fortunately, officers on the ground had immediately latched on to the Su-30’s catastrophic air incident and cleared airspace over the Chandan range. In his Jaguar, Gaurav’s course mate, worried by what ground control had just informed him, returned to base without releasing his bombs.
The unmanned Heron had been a terrifying near miss, but was kept in the air, every single one of its cameras and sensors pointed straight at the crashing Su-30. From the darkness above the Thar, the drone had silently managed to film the terrifying incident: the blazing right wing, the Sukhoi in its howling downward spiral, the awkward ejection and, most disturbingly, the flaming debris that rained down around Wing Cdr Chauhan and Sqn Ldr Tamta as they parachuted downward, some of it dangerously close. One touch was all it would have taken to destroy the synthetic material of the parachutes.
Descending in the darkness with little or no depth perception to tell how far away from the ground they were, the 2 pilots separately and coincidentally recalled what they had seen the previous day during a ‘paradrop’ from a C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft over Pokhran. The Army paratroopers had landed and quickly rolled over to the front to avoid injuries from the faster-than-it-looks descent. Both pilots decided that this is precisely what they would do. Except, they couldn’t see the ground as it rose towards them from below.
As Wing Cdr Chauhan finally grasped depth bearings, he noticed a well bang in the middle of his descent path. The emergency parachute was a life-saving device and wasn’t highly manoeuvrable. Great! he remembers thinking, I’ve punched out of a flaming Su-30, and now I’m headed straight for a well in the middle of the desert.
He made a strenuous effort to coax the chute in a different direction. And he thought he was imagining things when he saw the well actually move with him. He was 30 feet from the ground when he realized what that well really was: the shadow of his parachute. Tamta would later confirm he had the precise same sequence of hallucinations. Both pilots rolled forward in the sand when they landed.
By this time, Wing Cdr Chauhan could taste the blood on his face. He did a quick check to make sure he was okay. No injuries to his limbs. His back was okay. No apparent compression fractures to the spine, a common effect of ejection from a fighter. He was, as they meaningfully say in the military, in 1 piece.
Wing Cdr Chauhan then pulled out a cell phone from the thigh pocket of his flight suit to quickly take a video of his face. Blood flowed from the deep gash between his eyes. His left hand was badly burnt, probably while holding on to a
n air scoop that was spewing burning hot air during the final attempt to eject.
Shaken and bleeding, but assured that he was safe and had survived, Wing Cdr Chauhan wanted to let his wife know. Hoping she would hear it from him first, he texted her: ‘Ejected. Am OK.’ In Jodhpur, Avantika hadn’t heard. She called her husband back that second. Over and over she called his number, but Gaurav wasn’t picking up. Out there in the desert, his phone’s battery was low and he needed the light from his cell phone to signal to a rescue chopper that, with guidance from the Heron still buzzing above, had zeroed in on the pilots who had landed about 1 km apart.
Overshooting the 2 pilots a few times, the helicopter couldn’t seem to zero in on their precise location. Wing Cdr Chauhan remembers standing in the desert rejecting a barrage of incessant calls—most of them from Avantika—so he could signal to the chopper. Exasperated by the non-stop ringing, he finally picked up. It was Avantika. She tried not to let the worry show in her voice, but remembers fighting hard not to break down. Her husband’s message had pre-empted panic, but he was still out there. And wasn’t safe just yet. At the other end of the line, Wing Cdr Chauhan gently told his wife that he was okay, and to stop calling!
The 2 pilots were picked up and transferred back to base on stretchers, where the crash had created an enormous buzz, coming as it had right before a nationally televised event of political and diplomatic importance. With only superficial cuts and burns to treat, the 2 pilots did not have to face the unthinkable of never flying again.
On Independence Day 2013, Wing Cdr Gaurav Bikram Singh Chauhan was decorated with a Vayu Sena Medal for gallantry. The award carried with it a citation that spared no description:
In face of such [an] unprecedented situation wherein the aircraft bursts into flames with no warning of impending failure Wing Commander Gaurav Bikram Singh Chauhan displayed exceptional courage, situational awareness, uncommon reflexes, in extricating himself and crew member from a distressed aircraft.
If anything could define the cliché of a life-and-death situation, an in-flight emergency in a combat aircraft would do it better than most things. Pilots like Wing Cdr Chauhan are thrust into situations where they have to make a choice in less than a few seconds. In a flaming jet screaming towards the ground, a decision postponed by milliseconds could make all the difference. Sqn Ldr Rijul Sharma fought a terrifying emergency in his MiG-29 to arrive at a choice that could have killed him. But he felt he was equipped with the instinct and skill to justify that decision. For Wing Cdr Chauhan, the choice to stay with the aircraft never came up. Facing a similar catastrophe, but with an aircraft that could in no way be saved, his decision was whether to submit to the situation and go down with the jet, or fight through a physically unimaginable position to depart from an aircraft headed for certain doom.
Gaurav and Avantika’s son was born 3 months after the accident. It would be many months before Wing Cdr Chauhan was cleared to fly again. It was a worrying time for the young fighter pilot.
‘I remember being surprised at how keen he was to get back into a cockpit again,’ Avantika remembers. ‘It was more than a year after the accident that he was allowed back into an aircraft again. And he was so thrilled! I guess, once a fighter pilot, always a fighter pilot.’
The strain with which a pregnant Avantika held herself together to deal with the accident would have a lasting impact on her.
‘I didn’t think I was affected much by the accident. I only realized how much I was when the phone rang unexpectedly the first time Gaurav went night-flying after the accident. Palpitations and a cold sweat broke out. It was just Gaurav calling to chat because he hadn’t gone flying. I remember telling him not to call me at a time I was expecting him to be airborne because I expected it to be bad news and I really couldn’t handle the stress any more.’
The Indian Air Force court of inquiry would take years to figure out what went so catastrophically wrong over the Thar that night. While it was finally put down to a technical glitch, only the Indian Air Force would know just how close both men got to going down with a fighter on fire that moonlit night.
Avantika has advice for the families of pilots and warriors: ‘Having seen how our fighter pilots function, the stress they work under, all I can say is that families need to be supportive and think positive. The usual rules don’t apply to our fighting forces.’
They never do.
1 Hindustan Times, ‘Full Text of Nawaz Sharif’s Speech at UN General Assembly’, 21 September 2016, retrieved from http://bit.ly/2oBoRu9
2 Transcribed from a video of the speech: Asianet TV News, ‘Narendra Modi in Kozhikode Full Speech: BJP National Conference’, 24 September 2016, retrieved from https://youtu.be/dopFyUeUnIg
3 Indian Express, ‘Sushma Swaraj’s UNGA Speech’, 27 September 2016, retrieved from http://bit.ly/2oVO1XT
4 Indian Express, ‘Surgical Strikes: Full Text of Indian Army DGMO Lt Gen Ranbir Singh’s Press Conference’, updated 29 September 2016, retrieved from http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/pakistan-infiltration-attempts-indian-army-surgical-strikes-line-of-control-jammu-and-kashmir-uri-poonch-pok-3055874/
Glossary
2IC Second-in-command
AQAP Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula
Col. Colonel
Gen. General
IMA Indian Military Academy
J&K Jammu and Kashmir
LoC Line of Control
Lt. Lieutenant
Maj. Major
MARCOS Marine Commandos
MONUSCO United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
NDA National Defence Academy
NSCN-K Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland-Khaplang
Para-SF Parachute Regiment (Special Forces)
PoK Pakistan-occupied Kashmir
PONI Posted out, not interested
QRT Quick Reaction Team
R&R Army Hospital Research and Referral
Sqn Ldr Squadron Leader
Thoise Transit Halt of Indian Soldiers En Route (to Siachen)
UN United Nations
UNGA United Nations General Assembly
Wing Cdr Wing Commander
XO Executive officer
Acknowledgements
The force behind much of this book was the Chief of the Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat. He opened his doors to us with generosity and heart. When we met him to tell him about our book, he smiled and said he couldn’t wait to read it. We hope we have met his towering standards!
Gen. Rawat’s team of officers, Maj. Gen. A.K. Narula, Brig. Manoj Kumar, Col. K.S. Grewal, Col. Saket Jha and several others across departments who wished not to be named embraced this book and helped take it from a mere idea to the book you now hold in your hands.
Chief of the Naval Staff, Admiral Sunil Lanba, and Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa, allowed these two journalist-turned-authors into the restricted world of the men under their charge with the sort of faith that humbled us. We hope we haven’t let them down.
Captain Dalip Sharma, a shining star of the Indian Navy, was one of the earliest believers in this book and us. Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee, helped us choose the air force heroes whose stories we have told.
Our editor, Swati Chopra, a true hero herself, employed an infectious brand of enthusiasm and passive aggression to ensure we scaled this hill.
And to Mriga Maithel for her patience as we fought to the finish.
We are indebted to our families, whom we cannot thank enough. They often read drafts of these stories with tears in their eyes and an enormous sense of disbelief that such courage was humanly possible.
But above all, we salute the heroes themselves. And their comrades and their families. It is unlikely that we will ever again encounter the same generosity, humility and grace as we did during the course of writing this book. Thank you for being India’s most fearless.
THE BEGINNING
Let the
conversation begin…
Follow the Penguin Twitter.com@penguinbooks
Keep up-to-date with all our stories YouTube.com/penguinbooks
Pin ‘Penguin Books’ to your Pinterest
Like ‘Penguin Books’ on Facebook.com/penguinbooks
Find out more about the author and
discover more stories like this at Penguin.co.in
PENGUIN BOOKS
UK | Canada | Ireland | Australia
New Zealand | India | South Africa
Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
This collection published 2017
Copyright © Shiv Aroor and Rahul Singh 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Jacket images © Ahlawat Gunjan
ISBN: 978-0-143-44044-4
This digital edition published in 2017.
e-ISBN: 978-9-386-81542-2
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.