THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A fighter aircraft of the Indian Navy which participated in the 1971 Indo-Pak War is the pride of Thiruvananthapuram city. The Hawker Sea Hawk IN-174 sits majestically on the Jawahar Bala Bhavan premises facing the busy Palayam-Vellayambalam stretch. The carrier-based plane was used for ground attacks.
The Sea Hawk, perched on INS Vikrant,was part of the squadron that bombed the Chittagong Port in present-day Bangladesh.
Chittagong was a crucial eastern base of the Pakistan Navy then. The weapons it carried included four 40 mm guns, two 1000 LBS bombs, four 500 LBS bombs and 24 rockets.
The subsonic aircraft’s ceiling height was 40,000 feet. The board near the aircraft reads: “In 1971 Indo-Pak war the aircraft was launched from INS Vikrant for attack on Chittagong Port”.
During 1980s, the Navy donated the aircraft to the Jawahar Balbhavan which offered a course on aeromodelling. Originally, the aircraft was kept in the open, left to elements. It was the intervention of the then President APJ Abdul Kalam that helped the aircraft regain its glory.
In 2006, Blessen Siby, a Tiruvlla resident wrote to Kalam seeking his intervention.
Within a week, the President’s Office wrote to the chief secretary seeking follow-up action.
Unfortunately, in a classic case of red-tapism, the state government acted on it after 10 long years.
In 2016, the government and the Indian Navy jointly conducted the repair works. The Navy repainted the plane and erected a board displaying its details.