GUWAHATI: Wing Commander P Santra, one of the two pilots who sustained grievous injuries following an ejection in Thursday’s crash of a Su-30 fighter jet in Assam, was shifted to Kolkata on Friday.
“Wing Commander P Santra has been shifted to Kolkata. Squadron Leader Ishaan Mishra is undergoing treatment in Tezpur. Both are out of danger,” defence spokesman Lt Col Harsh Wardhan Pande told this newspaper.
It was learnt that both pilots had sustained multiple injuries.
The aircraft was on a routine training mission and it crashed at a muddy paddy field at Milanpur area of Tezpur while it was flying towards the IAF’s airbase for landing. Immediately after the crash, the jet caught fire.
Following the ejection, the pilots lay on the muddy field for several minutes, injured. One of them was seen in a video talking to higher officials on his mobile phone. Later, both were rescued by the locals who rushed them to a hospital in an ambulance. Subsequently, they were shifted to a military hospital in the town.
The incident comes close on the heels of an IAF’s transport aircraft crash in Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh in June. Thirteen IAF personnel, including some officers, were killed in the crash.